How the Pandemic Revivified the Home

• Post by: Emily Morales
• April 12, 2023

When the COVID-19 pandemic made landfall on Western shores in early spring of 2020, under a public health strategy of “flattening the curve” and virus containment, governments everywhere imposed lockdowns.[1] Concomitant with the stay-at-home orders were school and business closures, cancellation of “superspreader” events,[2] and significant restrictions on travel. Consequently, people experienced a major upheaval in the way they lived, traveled, schooled, worked, and played. Government lockdowns, in effect, forced hundreds of millions of people everywhere to rediscover a place that the conveniences of modernity had caused them to forget: a place called home. This rediscovery was manifest in families’ reprioritization of their domicile spaces to accommodate many things at once, such as tending to their children’s education, preparing meals with greater frequency, and, of course, remote work. Notably, the home-space has been so transformed by the pandemic that builders and architects have changed the design of new homes to meet the demand for increased square footage and greater functionality.[3] Architect Donald Ruthroff observed that new home design requires every square inch to do more, in view of greater functionality.[4] While it is impossible to overstate the negative impact of lockdowns—the disruption to millions of families, the economic damage to countless businesses and industries, and the shift to the societal landscape of many institutions—there remains a thin silver lining. The lockdowns served as a catalyst to change consumer behaviors in ways that ultimately directed us home. In addition to the tasks of working, educating, and eating from home, many coped by exploring new interests, acquiring new or advanced skills (in cooking and gardening), picking up new hobbies (music and art), and finding creative ways to entertain themselves. For many, the pandemic highlighted the benefits that could be enjoyed in rediscovering home, family