Like many of us, I have spent the last 5 months of lockdown consumed by news about the coronavirus pandemic: with daily updates about the spread and containment of the virus, alongside heart-breaking human-interest stories - about families unable to comfort their loved ones in their dying days because of the risk of contagion, unable to grieve properly, immigrants that had families torn a part, small children who never met their grandparents due to border restrictions, stories that I have much related to.
We learned much also about the social fallout from the pandemic: about disparities in health outcomes between different social groups, about the vastly different experiences of COVID and impact of lockdown by class, gender and ethnicity. Issues that have been the mainstay of sociologists and social scientists for decades were suddenly mainlined into our news and current affairs media surround.
Such differences – or social divisions – merely confirm what sociologists already knew: that the inequalities exposed by COVID-19 only compound already existing inequalities by class, gender, ethnicity, disability and so on. The COVID pandemic, as Jacquline Rose (2020) puts it, brings the ‘the hidden truth of a corrupt world to the surface’, exposing the fault lines in society and amplifying inequalities.
Aside from exposing the social divisions that are a staple of sociological analysis, the lockdown has also reminded us of the power of social forces, and this project is to support social connections in order to form stronger individuals.
This project will look into the macro together with the micro It will develop a better use to some private land, will provide the community a piece of architecture that can make better use of the public spaces by offering multiple services under one roof, to help bring communities together and enhance the urban cities.
The People’s Hub will welcome visitors and take them deeper into the natural environment. It will include outdoor plazas to welcome individuals and groups, to host a weekly fresh and food market a night event or just to pause and connect by the stairs is a space for everybody, a space where is free of entry where every age, every group is welcome.
There is room for quiet gathering or large exhibitions, is a place where you can find support. Either to showcase your new business or to use our desks when you have nowhere else to go.
There is room for quiet gathering or large exhibitions, is a place where you can find support. Either to showcase your new business or to use our desks when you have nowhere else to go.