New living and working models after the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a severe health, economic and social crisis that deeply impacted cities and communities worldwide (UN-Habitat, 2021). The pandemic also radically altered the way that people live, work, interact (D’Alessandro et al., 2020), influencing urban life and economies and compelling policy makers to manage and rethink urban public spaces and services. New trends in the living and working sector emerged following the adoption of government restrictions to limit the spread of the virus, like an increased use of homes for different purposes, increased use of digital service, extensive adoption of remote-working by companies, which has had repercussions for both businesses and households. On the one hand, firms paid rents for empty offices and therefore started reconsidering their physical space requirements for the future (WEF, 2021; ARUP, 2020). On the other hand, workers were forced at home, and often had to reconcile job and family care duties in inadequate spaces. New spaces, services and models are needed to accommodate new living and hybrid working modes that have been increasingly adopted, combining virtual and in-place presence. This paper aims to investigate which changes have occurred in the living and working sector after the pandemic and how they affected the demand and supply of housing and office spaces. It also aims to identify the new living and working models that could respond to these changes and reflect them in the real estate market. For this purpose, the paper provides an overview of the main trends in the demand and supply of living and working solutions consequent to COVID-19 in cities, and in the use of public spaces and services, based on desk research of available literature on the topic. Through evidence collected from literature, it identifies key “dimensions of change” focusing on dimensions along which living and working needs, habits and solutions have been changing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and might further evolve in the future. Four key dimensions are selected as representative for this change, namely: flexibility and interaction, regarding the use of spaces; accessibility and integration regarding the use of services. The selected dimensions range from rigidity to fluidity in space configuration (Flexibility); from low to high social interaction in spaces (Interaction); from access restrictions to open access (Service accessibility); from low to high variety and number of services (Integration). By using the selected dimensions of change, a set of living and working models is defined and the most relevant models are described, also through the use of emblematic case studies.