Well-Designed Outdoor Green Spaces Will Remain Popular In Post-Covid Residential Construction
Sourced from Forbes
For those who live in urban centers, navigating life during Covid-19 has meant rethinking use of green spaces. Pre-Covid, the local park, courtyard or well-designed backyard may have been a nice-to-have amenity, but the pandemic brought to light the importance of accessible green spaces for both physical and emotional wellbeing. From socially distant picnics and playdates to outdoor fitness classes and leisurely walk-and-talks, green spaces have become an essential antidote to isolation, with many city dwellers rediscovering the joys of moving leisure activities outside.
As the nation heads into summer ‘21 with a robust Covid-19 vaccine rollout underway and a majority of states moving towards full re-openings, green spaces continue to remain popular from both a usage and planning perspective. The zeitgeist shift, namely a renewed desire to spend more time outdoors, looks to be here for the foreseeable future. Additionally, data shows measurable health benefits of increasing urban green spaces, leading architects and designers to conceptualize new ways to increase access to the natural world in the context of high-density residential living.
We recently sat down with architect David Hovey Jr., President and COO of design-driven real estate development firm Optima, Inc., to learn more about how his firm is integrating green spaces into urban residential developments. “Well-designed green spaces will continue to be critically important in any residential development moving forward,” Hovey says. “Covid certainly brought about an immediacy to offering residents creative solutions to engage with their natural surroundings. A new, or renewed, desire to spend more time outdoors was the catalyst for us to further commit to outdoor amenity offerings.” For example, Hovey notes that, upon seeing the booming popularity in backyard entertaining during 2020, his team pivoted plans for a new build in Chicago to incorporate “new ways for residents to connect with the outdoors” such as modifying terraces to equip them with built-in grills and fire pits so people can have a more fluid indoor-outdoor lifestyle.
From the Living Architecture Academy
