As restaurants are called to abide by social distancing rules and use outdoor spaces, The Tenant, a Minneapolis restaurant, took over the sidewalk, offering takeout barbeque. Shifting their business model and offerings has been instrumental to many restaurants’ survival, including one of the world’s best restaurants, NOMA in Copenhagen, which returned as an outdoor wine bar with two options for burgers.
Restaurants
Global
Photo credit: Tasoulla Hadjiyanni
Issac Bailey, Batten Professor of Communication Studies at Davidson College, advocates for reopening schools, partly to avoid a deepening of the achievement gap. Learning from Ghana, he proposes having more classes in the open air, under canopies or tents. Increasing air circulation and encouraging natural air flow can be design characteristics incorporated in schools. For more examples of schools designed in response to crises, see here.
Schools
Global
Photo credit: Issac Bailey
Home interiors, from living rooms to balconies, gave voice to the unified power of dance as 32 ballet dancers from 14 countries raised funds for coronavirus relief. Meanwhile, athletes trained in garages, abandoned fields, or like triathlete Jelle Geens in an inflatable swimming pool in Belgium.
Privacy International called Covid-19’s impact on privacy “unprecedented.” Data along with movements can be tracked for the common good using apps, wristbands, and surveillance cameras, leaving unanswered questions about rights and privacy. China for instance, is installing cameras in peoples’ homes to monitor movement during quarantine.
Indoor spaces with other people and places with poor air circulation should be avoided as they are the main sources of infection, according to University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Biology Professor Erin Bromage. In workplaces, open windows to refresh air if possible and try to maintain social distance.
Working from home is not feasible for everyone. In some European nations, many people have never worked remotely and access to ultrafast fiber broadband is not widespread. For those who work in manufacturing, construction, or service industries working from home is not an option.
Using John Lennon’s Imagine as inspiration, Turin-based artist and illustrator Pierpaolo Rovero fantasizes about the way people around the world spend their time in quarantine–from Athens to New York, Paris, Jerusalem, and Tokyo. He uses windows, balconies, skylights, and rooftops, elements of residential environments that allow a glimpse of private life, shedding light on what unites us as humans and what gives us comfort and joy.
As many hair stylists are actually self-employed contractors, limiting the number of stylists who can work in a salon to maintain social distancing and number guidelines is detrimental to their financial well-being. Safety measures used include complimentary magazines and beverages not offered, walk-ins being asked to wait off premises until they can be seen, and video screenings prior to visiting the salon to ensure the client is well.
As countries turn inward to protect their own, questions about political and historical alliances arise. The viability of the European Union, which erased the notion of “borders” for many citizens of European nations, brings forth questions around who pays for the cost of the pandemic and its aftermath. Instead, the notion of travel corridors is now explored as new partnerships are formed in Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
Reopening hotels is instrumental to the revival of the tourism industry on which so many countries and communities depend for survival. Figuring out social distancing will be crucial and the same for cleanliness guidelines, such as the ones proposed by Trident Hotels. Cleaning is so cumbersome, it will be a question of how it can be enforced.