Page 60 - Shashwat - Restoring Green Economy

Feature

58

Designing

COVID-

Resilient

Homes

In this thought-provoking article, Dr Jatinder Kaur highlights the importance
of designing homes that are resilient to not just natural disasters but can also
resist and withstand outbreaks such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. She
urges the fraternity of architects to draw inspiration from our past on how to
develop coping mechanisms to stand tall against epidemics and pandemics.

n 2020, the COVID-19 The Oxford Dictionary defines a
pandemic dropped like “home” as “the house, apartment,
Ia bomb and opened up a etc., where one lives, especially with
Pandora’s box of challenges family” (Oxford n.d.). However, the
and hurdles for the world, as notion of a home, which is generally
nations witnessed the spread understood to provide a “space
of the coronavirus in utter for living”, expanded to a “living
stupefaction. Since then, the
Dr Jatinder Kaur, a PhD from virus has been moving with laboratory” where the COVID-19
IKG–PTU, Kapurthala has 25 fluidity and penetrating deep into outbreak and erratic lockdowns acted
years of experience in teaching the developing and developed as contaminants in the interaction
and research. In her current countries without any bias or between spaces and inhabitants.
role as Associate Professor mercy. While humankind was The outcome of these interactions
in Architecture at SPA, New trying to unlearn the concepts of were new experiences and meanings
when personal and professional
Delhi, she is engaged in art, “socializing” and learn the new needs overlapped with each other,
poetry, and academic writing. COVID-19-appropriate behaviour and family members struggled
She is a recipient of two IPRs and norms of “social distancing”, to find a corner of their own in
in the form of a copyright and the imposition of nationwide confinement. Though the “home”
lockdowns came down as the
design registration for her PhD seemingly only available option was performing the basic function of
work. She can be reached at for containing the spread of the providing shelter to its inhabitants
jatinderkaur@spa.ac.in. outbreak. Our homes became including pets during the pandemic,
lifesaving places of solace in the its meaning altered drastically
thick fog of uncertainty. over a time period of one and a half