COVID-19 Recovery and Human Scale Design - Guest Blogger: Tai Silvey
Excerpt:
At its simplest, human scale design is creating things and places that make sense and match the physical and mental qualities of humans. Human scale design promotes human safety and comfort by considering how people physically move in time and space, how they perceive things and where they put their attention.
There has been a trend over the past number of decades that bigger is better. From movie theaters, to malls and restaurants, packing more people into a space creates greater efficiencies. But, with the arrival of COVID-19, it was suddenly safer to be with fewer people in smaller spaces that are accessible directly from the street. In fact, these smaller spaces designed for the scale of human activity create a vibrant and livable city and form an integral part of a community. Shopping on Main Street in Vancouver where unique and diverse small businesses and restaurants are welcoming at street level will give you a sense of this vibrancy. Buildings are small, accessible from the street and often spill out into patio or sidewalk space.
As always, my own experiences colour my perceptions and are some of my best teachers. When my wife, Dr. Neri Moss and I built Moss Dental Studio, we purposely built a small boutique practice to create a place where Dr. Moss could perform one-on-one personalized dental care. She wanted a place where patients felt safe, comfortable and connected to their care. With its street front entrance, just steps from the fresh air, and its human scale design approach that focuses on one patient at a time, the studio is well positioned to offer optimal care in our new world.
Whether through happy coincidence, or Dr. Moss being ahead of the curve (my bias leans towards the latter), Moss Dental Studio taps into a trend that is surely going to accelerate over the coming years, and not just in healthcare. Restaurants and shops with direct access to walkable streets, designed with the appropriate scale for the context and community and include open spaces like outdoor patios will thrive. Not only do they form healthier and safer places to shop, work and play, they also help create places where people can come together to build and sustain social connections.
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