Environments by Design

Abstract

During the COVD-19 pandemic, face coverings and partitions that protect people from the virus have enabled individuals to connect by separating from one another. On February 27, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a recommendation to install transparent barriers of glass or acrylic. The barriers perform three functions: to intercept the droplets that carry the virus, to remind people of physical distancing requirements, and to reduce reliance on masks when there is a shortage of PPEs. By mid-March, the barriers swiftly appeared not only in medical spaces, but at cashier’s counters, taxis, post offices, and later at restaurants and hair salons to protect the health of employees and customers. Like masks, these barriers have been introduced as an emergency public health measure; however, social implications of these public health measures remain largely unconsidered and demand attention. 

Transparent materials such as glass or acrylic allow people to see each other’s faces, which is generally preferred over opaque materials that prevent reading facial expressions and body language that convey emotions. Seeing gestures and mouth movements is also more equitable for people with hearing difficulties. Although transparent masks have been designed in response to such concern, even a clear material is an obstruction; sounds are muffled, tactility is lost, and reflections on the surfaces can obstruct vision. Furthermore, acrylic barriers can remind us of high security, stressful interactions, such as sitting in the back seat of police cars. Over the past couple of decades, offices have removed partitions between employees in order to create more open, egalitarian office environments. If partitions need to be re-introduced, companies must be mindful of how these barriers may create unintended hierarchies and communication obstructions that result from the walls. This paper examines the physical, social, and mental impacts of protective barriers on our cities and interiors.  

This paper will examine the early explorers’ huts built in Antarctica, along with other structures such as the Fuller dome at the South Pole, to propose that the desert continent has served as distinctive site for the architectural imagination. With no building materials, with no aboriginal cultures, with no nations, the extreme setting has indeed been regarded as a tabula rasa for architectural thinking. But the paper will also explore, and emphasize, the proposition that these structures represent a distinct challenge to architectural history, resistant as they are to the conventions of architectural historiography, such as authorship, tradition, or representation. These desert buildings therefore offer a twofold challenge: the challenge of their imagining, and the challenge of their historical interpretation.