Open Call for Entries - Viral Transitions: Covid-19 and the Public Realm

Covid-19 has reshaped the daily flow of life, fracturing routines, economic systems, and the reliance on shared public space. While the crisis continues to unfold, the effects on collective space and the collective practice of design are held in flux, oscillating between old and new normals. Viral Transitions offers students and early-career practitioners a place to reflect on the implications of these transitions, both through completed and speculative alterations to existing public space and internal changes to design practice as well as pedagogy as a result of the pandemic.

The public realm has suddenly become more comprehensively considered than it likely ever has been; the design of everything from door handles to outdoor dining tables and shared air are suddenly called into question. Designers, in their typical fashion, have jumped at the chance to embrace social distancing as a new design challenge – a chance at graphic insertions into the public realm instructing visitors on safe uses of and passages through the network of public spaces. Numerous design competitions have popped up calling for the redesign of products, spaces, routines, mobile apps, etc. A few competitions even encourage designers to think speculatively about the post-Covid future. Many of these new ideas have garnered national press, spreading their reach beyond the often insular design world. 

Design firms, too, have eagerly reimagined spaces to allow for continued use. The worldwide implementation of the Domino Park circles indicates an appetite for this kind of reimagination. And while imitation might be the most sincere form of flattery, success is not a prerequisite of imitation. Viral Transitions focuses on the efficacy of these transitions whether they be local or global, temporary or permanent, insertions or structural, critically-acclaimed or unnoticed.

Many of these design interventions are temporary, meant to last only while social distancing orders are necessary, while others focus on long lasting implementation such as urban furniture.

Viral Transitions is not meant to house scholarly exultations or takedowns of these transitions, rather it is a space to reflect in (semi) real time on the role, practice, and pedagogy of design fields in theorizing and constructing elements of the public realm. As these transitions continue to be implemented it is imperative to examine the short and long-term implications of these new insertions in the built environment. Which elements are worth keeping? Which exacerbate current inequalities within public space? Which merely help us navigate in going about our daily lives? Which act to increase surveillance? And which increase access to public space, both now and in the long term?

With the unprecedented focus on shared spaces comes an opportunity to examine design practices as they are happening alongside massive societal shifts.

But while these public facing transitions to the built environment are occurring, so too are transitions in the way design is taught and practiced. The spring saw offices and classrooms reconfigured to virtual environments, creating personal transitions alongside the public ones. Viral Transitions also encompases remote work and education as key transitions in design thinking and practice that constitute the creation of the public realm. As these distanced practices continue into the fall, what is working? And perhaps, more pressingly, what is not?

Viral Transitions is open to all students and early-career practitioners who wish to contribute to the discourse surrounding the on-going transitions in design as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Please send all inquiries to: des-McHarg@design.upenn.edu