Are the open-plan office, co-working, and hotdesking all dead? Is remote working the new normal? Will our commercial real estate ever be the same again? These are the questions swirling around the buildings industry as we look ahead to the mysterious post-COVID landscape. “We are, at this moment, probably prone to overthinking a pandemic’s influence [on the built environment],” says Ian Klaus, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Urban Affairs. “But pandemics really do prompt profound behavior change.” It wouldn’t be the first time that disease reshaped our built environment. Improvements in potable water distribution, wastewater extraction, air ventilation, insulation, entry-procedures, and all manner of standard building materials, have all come about in reaction to health and safety issues. The bubonic plague sparked building improvements that reduced contact between rodents and humans, cholera improved the separation of potable and wastewater, each major outbreak serving as a growing motivator to reshape buildings for the […]