Title:
Apartments in our Transforming City
Transcript:
COVID-19 transformed our city. We transformed our apartments.
Our lives have changed under this unprecedented pandemic. Due to the social distancing restrictions imposed, we were forced to somehow do most of our daily activities in our small and cramped apartments. From working in an office to working from home; studying in school to having zoom classes at home; exercising outdoors to training at home — our apartments, originally used solely for residential and leisure purposes, must now accommodate all the new required functions. While people living in nano apartments already face problems such as the lack of moving space before the pandemic, accommodating such new functions seem to be a hard mountain to climb (Robles, 2021). The question is, with such limitations on size and density, how do we transform our apartments into a multi-purpose, all-in-one space for all our activities?
Looking into the zoning and functioning of a normal home, this video essay hopes to investigate how our varying physical activities under such special circumstances lead to the transformation of our apartments. It aims to show a contrast of household settings and functions before and during the pandemic. At the beginning of the film, the first-person view shows the original setups under pre-covid settings. As the protagonist exits the room, he hopes to answer the question: how did we transform our apartments amid the pandemic? How did we do it? The third-person view provides the answer — a transformed apartment: the corridor transforming from a walkway to a ‘penalty shooting area’ and a ‘fitness centre’, and the dining table transforming into ‘office desks’ and ‘classroom tables’.
While there are a lot more variations on the spatial adaptations in different apartments responding to different needs, these adaptations are not enough as problems still arise and hinder us from having a better living quality. Research indicated that a prolonged period of staying home would create conflicts for families that live together due to space and privacy restrictions (Sun, 2020).
To solve these problems, the video essay takes a step forward from the status quo, asking the question, “What is the future of apartments?” Various architectural practices and interior designers suggested active and adaptive reassessments to spatial separations and zonings in our homes to maximize the utility of space (Makhno, 2020), especially under the current growing trend of working from home and people being more open towards spending time in their apartments (Wong, 2020). Adapting flexible interiors, for instance, would remove the limitations on potential transformations, removing the space and privacy restrictions mentioned above. Movable partitions under an open plan would certainly better accommodate different activities with varying forms, create better zoning and acoustic separation within an apartment, whilst providing a more interactable, sustainable and multi-functional area for users.
The pandemic certainly changed our city in every possible way. In the face of such drastic changes, it is time we reflect upon the small details in our lives. Somewhat under the radar, we’ve transformed our apartments, but we have to take a step forward. From concerns on spatial functionality to mental well-being, the industry and the public should rethink and adopt new changes to our apartments — and ultimately, make our lives better.
Credits:
Director: Tang King To Anson
Actor: Tang King To Anson
Audio: ChannelNewsAsia ‘COVID-19: Hong Kong to tighten social distancing measures as cases rise’;
e-soundtrax ‘Best Documentary Background Music For Videos | Cinematic Music’
Bibliography :
Bahadursingh, N. (2020, May 20). 6 Ways COVID-19 Will Change Home Design – Architizer Journal. Journal. https://architizer.com/blog/inspiration/industry/covid-19-home-design/
Bos, L. (2021, January 7). How Will Our Homes Adapt to a Post-COVID World? ELLE Decor. https://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/interior-designers/a34918038/architecture-home-design-after-covid-pandemic/
Dowling, R., & Power, E. (2012). Sizing Home, Doing Family in Sydney, Australia. Housing Studies, 27(5), 605–619. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2012.697552
Makhno, S. (2020, March 25). Life after coronavirus: how will the pandemic affect our homes? Dezeen. https://www.dezeen.com/2020/03/25/life-after-coronavirus-impact-homes-design-architecture/
Robles, P. (2021, March 25). How coronavirus is transforming our space, possibly forever. South China Morning Post. https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/news/world/article/3126723/architecture-post-coronavirus/index.html
Spennemann, D. H. (2021). RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE IN A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD: IMPLICATIONS OF COVID-19 FOR NEW CONSTRUCTION AND FOR ADAPTING HERITAGE BUILDINGS. Journal of Green Building, 16(1), 199–215. https://doi.org/10.3992/jgb.16.1.199
Sun, F. (2020, April 11). Domestic violence cases up sharply in Hong Kong since start of pandemic. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3079338/stuck-home-monster-more-reports-violence-against
Tokazhanov, G., Tleuken, A., Guney, M., Turkyilmaz, A., & Karaca, F. (2020). How is COVID-19 Experience Transforming Sustainability Requirements of Residential Buildings? A Review. Sustainability, 12(20), 8732. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12208732
Wong, A. (2020, May 20). Survey Findings on Working from Home under COVID19 – Research Press Conferences – News and Media – Research & Impact – Lingnan University. Www.ln.edu.hk. https://www.ln.edu.hk/research-and-impact/research-press-conferences/survey-findings-on-working-from-home-under-covid19
Working from home calls for land rethink in Hong Kong. (2020, November 18). South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3110418/working-home-calls-land-rethink-hong-kong
Tang King To Anson
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Thoroughly enjoyed the concept of your video. The restrictions we had in the past year has in turn made us really think about what we can do with the extremely small spaces of our apartments, a sort of flexibility and creativity with the program. What is interesting to me is the thinking of movable walls to make the apartment more flexible than it is, something that is already being made in certain apartments (sliding doors, partitions etc), but an interesting question to pose would be if we already had the creativity and flexibility to utilise every corner of the apartment, it is absolutely necessary to have these walls, or what if there are no walls to begin with? I’m just thinking off the top of my head, but I believe that it is worth studying.
The video is a quite faithful and creative record of people living during the pandemic and has good integration with academic ideas. The ground plan of the department makes the organization quite clear and more interesting. By questioning “is it enough”, the discussion becomes more crucial and comprehensive. The overall visual design including the filter and the font of script is consistent to provide a sense of tension and worries. Sound effects, like the noise of door clocking and the news narration, emphasized the social situation and the necessity of departments’ accordingly transforming—a transforming to a comparatively better life.
It is very insightful that you can see the transformation of the usage of our living spaces before and during the pandemic, and even think further into the future possible changes of our apartments. Living in such a crowded and small city, it is especially necessary for Hong Kong citizens to think about how to utilize our small apartments to make them suit our needs better when people are spending more time at home during the pandemic. The transformation of the usages and functionalities of different areas in the apartment clearly demonstrates how people cope with the pandemic with their creativity and flexibility. It is also interesting to see from your video that everyone is a potential ‘architect’ as we all have the ability to adjust the relationship between architecture and our own needs in different contexts.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful video with us. I really appreciate the way you made this short video. The filter, background music are attractive. The voice of the news broadcast at the beginning of the video is quite creative. This video shows me how the pandemic changed our city by presenting the change of small details in our lives. It inspires me to think about how to better the inside spatial separations and zonings to adapt to people’s ever-growing new needs, for instance, flexible office. Indeed, the city is transforming due to the transformation of our lifestyle.
The video has a good concept. It clearly shows how the pandemic forced us to think creatively to adapt to the situation which also caused our daily lives to change a bit. I think the first-perspective view at the start of the video really helped to get a sense of the size of the space I’m looking at. By putting different utilisation of the space right next to each other showed immediate contrast and overall made the video well-organized. I appreciate how you also addressed the potential problems of staying in lockdowns, such as the lack of privacy and restricted space because it conveyed that there’s still a limit to how we can utilise space and also allowed me to understand why the future of architecture might be different.
Really like the idea of how you have amplified each “division” in your apartment and have explored in-depth in terms of the function and the change of nature during the pandemic. Visually, the color gradings, in co-operationg with the background music, were effective in depicting the emotion and atmosphere in an apartment, thus the monologue of the protagonist of the film.
The video demonstrates an understanding of and the ability to apply and synthesise research, concepts and key issues relating to a well-identified topic. You were able to adequately identify the most critical aspects of the theme/place and present a competently articulated interpretation of the topic. It would be great if there is some sort of documentation or comparison between the scales of the transformative programmes, such as zoom vs physical classrooms, corridor vs fitness centres etc. Nevertheless, it is innovative in regard to methodologies. You maintained a good control of techniques and organisation of the content. The video editing is pretty good with overlaid plan of your home. The written and verbal articulation are of competent academic standard, and adequately integrated into the overall presentation.