19 Ways to Redesign the World in the Covid-19 Era

POLITICO Magazine surveyed designers, architects, planners, doctors, psychologists, logisticians, and others, asking them how they would redesign the world for the Covid-19 era and beyond.

1 minute read

July 8, 2020, 11:00 AM PDT

By Clement Lau


Coronavirus Map

Martin Sanchez / Unsplash

A variety of experts share how they would redesign our physical spaces and re-envision our models of service delivery. Some imagined ways to make physical spaces such as airports, apartments, offices, and parks more spacious and less risky to our health and wellbeing. Some envisioned new and more efficient models for delivering services as such as health care, medical supplies, social services, and voting. And others dreamed up ideas to sustain meaningful human interactions across physical and social distance. Here are the 19 ideas discussed in the article:

  1. Build skyward.
  2. Rethink restaurants - from back to front.
  3. Create more private outdoor spaces.
  4. Let airports sprawl.
  5. Replace prisons.
  6. Bring parks to people.
  7. Let the military manage the supply chain.
  8. Modernize the doctor house call.
  9. Create a new "healthist" economy.
  10. Refashion end-of-life care.
  11. Reimagine the retail experience.
  12. Replace short flights with buses.
  13. Sell diners on higher prices.
  14. Equip offices for the next crisis.
  15. Don't ditch in-person voting. Make it safer.
  16. Speed up delivery of government benefits.
  17. Keep distance learning in place.
  18. Enlist off-campus students in the recovery.
  19. Learn new communication tricks.

Friday, July 3, 2020 in Politico Magazine

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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