The New Normal – Perspectives of the Retail, the Hospitality and the Residential Spaces

The Global Covid-19 Pandemic has brought in with it, new protocols, new safety measures, new patterns of behavioural changes and an array of unlearning and rethinking in terms of Design And Planning. Aludecor presents The Post Lockdown Roadmap to Design & Planning, where we delve deeper into the New Normal and its different facets. It is a Four Chapter Insight Series that brings in elevated perspectives of the Industry Leaders and their subjective views on Design & Planning in the Post Lockdown Situation.

Chapter I “The New Normal: Perspectives of the Retail, the Hospitality and the Residential Spaces” unfolds with our eminent Panellists Ar. Ketan Chavan (Principle Architect- KCL Design & Architecture, Mumbai), Ar. Shilpa Balvally & Ar. Sameer Balvally (Principal Architects- Studio Osmosis, Mumbai) and Mr. Rahul Todi (MD, Bengal Shrachi Housing Development Pvt. Ltd.).

“Significant changes in design on Retail segment in India post the lockdown. The whole experience of touch and feel will be replaced by contactless shopping.”

Ar. Ketan Chavan: Now is the time to realize the difference between Needs Vs Wants. The essential services will continue to be functional and will be a part of the Need segment. The Want segment of the business will take time to slowly get back into normal or will make an extra effort to reach out to customers. The individual retailers or small shops, how they will deal with the new reality will have to be witnessed.

Safety over profit will be given importance. A lot of trade is actually going from offline to online trade. At bigger outlets like malls, apart from the safety essentials carried by the visitors, I feel making them buy fresh mask and gloves at the entry should be made mandatory so that they will not walk inside wearing their existing safety essentials in order to curb the spread. Each store should have housekeeping staff who will sanitize surfaces touched by customer’s every time so that others will also feel safe about the environment they have walked in. A number of people will have to be restricted inside the store. We as designers, as far the planning is concerned, we need to create a one-way entry for customers and intersection with the other customers is minimized. As designers, we need to look at antimicrobial coated surfaces. For fresh construction, we need to look at precast, pre-fabricated and preformed structures so that labour time and installation time is minimized. 

“Behavioural changes at home which will become like office, infotainment and dining experience. The World is your Oyster will change to The Oyster is your World”

Ar. Shilpa Balvally: The last few months have changed the way we think, and we live. As human beings, we are used to behaving in a certain way since centuries, and this entire situation has changed human behaviour as a whole. We seemed to have pressed the entire reset button. These few months will be learning for us, as to what should be done if this kind of situation hits again, how do we can do things better, how we can do things differently. As far as residential segments go, the homes in Mumbai are usually smaller as compared to other cities. We get to see three generations of people living in 800 sq ft to 1000 sq ft of houses. So we are going to witness a challenge of balancing flexibility of work into their homes and multi-functionality of living together yet find your own privacies. So in future, while designing, we need to keep in mind how to create flexible spaces for the work environment and family time in the same house whether it is 500 sqft or 5000 sqft. How you can do micro-planning for homes where the same place can be used for multiple functions. 

“What will the Builder’s perspective be, post the lockdown era? How do you think Builders will contribute to this development, wherein a lot of changes are going to be witnessed?”

Rahul Todi: As creators of residential spaces, malls, workspaces, entertainment zones, Hospital buildings, we are like enablers in this society. Our responsibility in the past and going forward will remain the same, and we will go on building spaces that people will call their own. Our buildings are getting iconic statuses which the whole city can celebrate as their infrastructure. Going forward, a lot of things will change, and the first part of the pandemic will be to acquire a vaccine or till we get a correct protocol for the cure. Once we get that people will get back to their original scene as am very optimistic about this. Hopefully, by Diwali, things will start looking brighter a bit more as am sure by then some strong protocol will come up, and people will learn the rules of living safely with the virus.

We need to be ready for flexibility. Work from home will continue for another 8 to 9 months. Even during the lockdown, we have been getting enquiries, and those who had already invested are also ready to move into their new homes. 

“Can we hope for a revival in the Hospitality Industry? What kind of changes can be expected in designing and planning in that Industry?”

Ar. Sameer Balvally: I can foresee that the hospitality industry will have a different level of security or checkpoint, which will be your health checkpoint. There might be a mandate to fill up some personal data of your recent life activities. As a temporary plan, if a restaurant was operating at 150 covers, now will operate at 100. Or maybe lesser with the right amount of screening and sanitization. More hygienic ways of open kitchens, cooking, taking orders and serving the food will be incorporated. The food source will be scrutinized, how the storing will be done, how its transfer will happen; all these will be taken very strongly in the account. Wherever we went before to eat due to the fact that we loved their food, or went to stay due to the comfort factors, now those same places will first have to reinforce safety and hygiene following certain protocols which will need to be looked into to bring back its consumers. That is what will help us shed the fear to go back there once again.

I also feel outdoor dining places and restaurants will be really popular going forward. Maybe not in Mumbai, but many other cities or Tier-II cities will incorporate these styles of dining am sure. The way gymnasiums have started coming into housing complexes, the same way some eateries can plan and tie up to open their outlets inside the complexes.

Rahul Todi: I feel Integrated complexes are doing better than stand-alone buildings. The community area I think is very important as you need to give spaces to the residents to interact amongst themselves. Even in a non-COVID situation, this is important as we advance. Now people have become very dependent on each other, and a whole emotional change has taken place. And all these emotions will have different reactions. I am personally against the term “Social Distancing”. I prefer to use the term “Physical Distancing”.

“Role of Sanitization Tunnels”

Ar. Ketan Chavan: Sanitization Tunnels will be one of the solutions we might need to get used to as a means to a reasonable amount of hygiene guarantee one will have towards space. But this will be more relevant for malls or big housing complexes where you can expect a huge number of people to come. We often tend to ignore certain sanitization rules by ourselves, but if there’s a sanitization tunnel, it becomes mandatory for one to pass through that. Since lesser density places and suburbs are being preferred now everywhere, but in Mumbai and other Tier-I cities, we cannot enjoy that luxury.

“How do we reduce and determine the density of people in definite areas?”

Rahul Todi: The cost of real estate had two components- one is the cost of land, and the second is the cost of building the infrastructure. Cost of land in our country is largely controlled by our Government. In Singapore, they make one area densely populated and keep one area more open. That’s a good guideline. Once the land cost comes down, it will be easier to give affordable pricing to the end consumer. The land component in India is very high, which the Government has understood. Western companies don’t like to invest in these kinds of systems so that trade-off needs to be put in place.

“Do you think NBC will be allowed to define how many people will populate certain places? Since fire incidents and safety of people cannot be compromised; hence NBC codes, need to be updated as human lives cannot be compromised.”

Ar. Sameer Balvally: There is a certain influx the way the market is going. For example, for a city like Mumbai, it’s not always possible to keep more open spaces. It’s not always on the NBC but also the master planning of the city. If you look at the DPR the way the entire city has been planned or determined, if you look at a particular land/space for development, what you end up constructing is a high-rise with very little space left to create an open space.

Earlier homes were something from where I would travel to and fro for 2 hours to the office and come back home only to sleep. Now seeing the scenario, the concept of home has changed, who knows, now developers will have a better chance to bring about a residential building which will be predominantly for renting closer to working areas. Those who come to densely populated cities to work or come for transitional work basis that will serve them better.

Ar. Shilpa Balvally: Other than having private society related spaces which are for individual apartments and buildings, there needs to be a lot of focus on public spaces. If I am in a neighbourhood of 25 to 30 buildings which is densely populated, but in that neighbourhood, if I have a good school, a good hospital and a few good parks, then I will be self-sufficient in that zone, and along with me everyone can access it whether their building has a facility or not. And also that way, a builder will not have to go all the way to create huge open spaces in other areas.

Rahul Todi: I think that’s where the role of creating public spaces will gain importance. Sometimes we become very inward-looking and end up creating the best public spaces within our complex and forget the rest of the area. Our people on whom we are dependant for daily interactions like iron man, sweeper and maids if the infrastructure is made to keep them in the same area or zone, it will further help us. In Bengal, we made complexes where HIG, MIG and LIG are in one area where a lot of the residents can depend on each other, and this concept has been successful.

For example, we saw in the news how Dharavi was going out of hands in terms of hygiene and safety. But this plan is in the hands of the Government and if they permit we can come up with solutions.