Introduction

The time of the COVID-19 pandemic, which we are all witnessing, has posed numerous challenges in all spheres of life, and the changes have been most obvious at the level of forced transformations of established lifestyles and everyday habits. The fact is that we have to accept changes, but the question is whether we can direct and shape them in order to retain to everything that makes us happy? Of course, the notion of happiness represents an entity that is relative and its interpretation is always individual; yet, the notion that is universal and that can certainly be related to the notion of happiness is human well-being. How can we preserve (or even improve) human well-being with all new restrictions due to the pandemic? The group of exhibits presented at the In Search Of New Comfort: Architecture in pandemic conditions exhibition strives towards offering answers to the question of shaping all the necessary transformations, with an exceptional commitment to preserving the aspects that, according to the authors, make a contemporary person happy.

The presented exhibits can be divided into three basic segments dealing with the consideration of challenges related to public spaces, commercial purposes, and housing. If the proposed solutions are carefully observed, it can be concluded that the idea of a city as a platform for artistic expression, and consequently a space of dialogue, tolerance and democracy, may not be as impossible as it seems at first glance. By accepting new restrictions and articulating spatial elements in such a way that the necessary physical distance does not imply social distance, the authors do not restrict freedom of space users, and they even go a step further – they invite them to exchange opinions and ideas.

Preserving the utilitarian nature of public and commercial spaces is also a topic whose significance was emphasized at the In Search Of New Comfort: Architecture in pandemic conditions exhibition. The fact is that the sphere of economy is globally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and architectural practice has tools that can significantly affect economic sustainability, which the authors successfully confirm with their research. The offered spatial solutions provide safe working environments, commercial facilities, and also hybrid facilities and combined purpose facilities. In addition to the safety of space users, the solutions proposed by the authors also aim at preserving socialization as one of the key elements of modern lifestyles.

If the exhibits related to the transformation of housing during the pandemic are analysed, it can be concluded that the authors have carefully considered primarily the concept of housing from the aspect of human habits and needs in the context of the 21st century. A special quality that can be noticed refers to the design of living spaces that enable their unhindered use in conditions when there is a demand for enhanced sanitary measures, though with providing the flexibility of spatial units. As in the case of public and commercial spaces presented at the exhibition, the authors dealing with the challenges related to residence also emphasize the importance of the social aspect, which is evidently one of the fundamental input factors in generating the proposed spatial solutions.

The In Search Of New Comfort: Architecture in pandemic conditions exhibition very directly indicates to the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has posed to modern society, and consequently to architectural practices whose actions have a great impact on the future of lifestyles. What can be singled out as the leitmotif of the In Search Of New Comfort: Architecture in pandemic conditions exhibition is the authors’ aspiration to preserve the hedonism of everyday life despite all the necessary restrictions. The notion of hedonism, like the already mentioned notion of happiness, is closely related to personal preferences; nevertheless, the presented group of exhibits displays a clear attitude that the preservation of interpersonal relations is a timeless precondition for the preservation of the future.

Saša Medić

PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Novi Sad