Change of Home and Working Environments at Home in the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Abstract

As it is known, a new and dangerous virus was discovered in 2019, which is thought to have emerged from the Chinese Animal Market in the city of Wuhan in the South of China and originated from SARS-Cov. With the decision of the World Health Organization as of March 11, 2020, this new virus was named as Covid-19 and was declared as an "epidemic / pandemic" due to its rapid spread all over the world.

With the ongoing Corona Virus epidemic in the middle of 2021, many different and new concepts have entered people's lives, and known concepts have gained different meanings. In the covid-19 process, issues such as hygiene, social distance, mask and virus protection have become the most important key concepts of human life. In line with the warnings of the Ministry of Health and the scientific committee on combating the epidemic, people's lifestyles have also changed. In particular, the concepts of social distance and hygiene required people to be physically distant, and the use of masks has become a necessity in order to prevent the virus from being transmitted. The epidemic has changed not only the forms of individual actions of people, but also the way they use spaces. In particular, different arrangements had to be made in public use spaces. The most important of these is the working environment. In order to prevent the transmission of the virus, different working alternatives have been developed in all workplaces, remote working, working from home, partial working, etc. recommendations were developed and implemented.

In addition, the Ministry of Health has put forward the motto "Life Fits Home" in the fight against the epidemic and encouraged people to stay at home. All arrangements for working life and home life have also changed the meanings and duties of their homes, where people have to spend all their time during the epidemic. Users had to perform their work activities at home and tried to adapt the spatial organization of the houses. While some of the family members were working, the children of the house had to spend their distance education processes at home.

Having to work at home during the Covid-19 process has revealed the necessity of making spatial arrangements to realize the action of working remotely, while in some homes this adaptation can be done easily, in some homes there have been problems with the house serving different action groups. Particularly, small sqm² residences are the types of residences that have the most problems in the realization of remote work. Because if the house does not have a flexible space organization, important problems have been encountered in creating an environment for working action for existing action groups in small sqm² houses. In this regard, working spaces have been created with temporary solutions in some houses and with more comprehensive arrangements in case the process may be long in others.

Within the scope of this study, the changes experienced by the houses during the Covid 19 process were examined, and what kind of applications were carried out for working spaces at home in small sqm² houses. What kind of suggestions can be developed for the spatial setup of the house, especially in small sqm² houses, will be discussed through selected examples from the literature.

Key Words: Covid-19, Epidemic, Home, Small Square Meter, Small Square Meter Home, Work from Home, Work from Home at Covid-19 Pandemic