The Home and Covid-19 Pandemic: Domestic Space. History and Flexible Design as Factors to Cope with the Seclusion Distress. Projektowanie wnętrz po pandemii. Covid-19: od przygnębienia spowodowanego odosobnieniem do innowacyjnego podejścia do projektowania przestrzeni domowej

How long will the COVID-19 pandemic last? This is a core question as the new variants considered “of concern” by WHO show that the emergency is not over yet. There is no evidence that the COVID-19 will be eradicated for goods shortly: the only way to cope with it is to trust in scientific research and resist. Architecture and housing design is a structural sector of this resistance as it is a great part of the human environment. As well the house is the primary shelter where we place our domestic universe, it is the fortress that can stand at threatens of the outside world, including pandemics. But the resistance (or in updated terms, “resilience”) concerns the connection between the house’s physical shape, the quality of the space, and people’s emotional response. The formal structure of the house gets a representational meaning since it is strictly bound to some archetypical architectural figures like the enclosure which, in turn, evokes images like the shelter or the prison. Those images during lockdown time can link themselves with the fear of the pandemic worsening the distress. According to the architectural design method grounded on historical research the article states that the knowledge of the past, i.e. the way architecture coped with the great pandemics as the Black Plague, and the evolution of domestic space should be merged with an innovative design that adapts the physical aspects of architecture to the emotional realm.