Home Balconies during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Future Architect’s Preferences in Lisbon and Warsaw

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns altered people’s perception of the relationship between indoor and outdoor living spaces, pushing the home balcony concept into new levels of ambiguity. Particularly in European contexts, people’s perspectives on its existence, functions, features, and borders are now unclear territory. Therefore, our study intends to assess the balcony design features and activities during pandemic times through the lens of selected key informants’ preferences in Lisbon and Warsaw, resorting to a post-occupancy evaluation of an online survey and a subsequent statistical analysis using a Mixed Model Analysis of Variance. Differences in cultural/social background, climate, and geography appear to be irrelevant during the pandemic, as both locations’ respondents show similar outcomes concerning balcony preferences. Activities previously practised elsewhere are now preferential to occur on balconies, such as having meals, gathering people, or reading and writing. The study concludes that the importance of home balconies increased during the pandemic, demanding an update of its design features to accommodate the newly rediscovered activities with direct implications on its users’ health and life quality.