The coronavirus pandemic has placed any number of demands on our homes, which now serve as makeshift offices, art studios, gyms, workshops, classrooms and storage lockers. And urban apartments — where all of those functions are often squeezed into a space-constrained envelope — face the biggest challenges of all.

在疫情之下，人们对家有了各种各样的要求，因为家现在成为了临时办公室、艺术工作室、健身房、工作坊、教室和储藏柜。城市公寓要将以上所有功能挤进有限的空间中，面临的挑战最大。

Those of us quarantined in a city have devised ad hoc solutions to cope in the short term. But if history is any guide, the experience should have lasting implications for the future of apartment design long after the lockdowns end.

我们这些被隔离在城市中的人急中生智，想出了应急之道。但若能以史为鉴，这段经历对于封锁措施解除后的公寓设计将产生深远影响。

More than a century ago, diseases like tuberculosis and the 1918 influenza “had an enormous impact on architecture, with the creation of sanitariums that were very open and were all about the balcony, light and air,” said Paul Whalen, a partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects. “Whether it was subconscious or not, that kind of architecture had a big influence on residential architecture throughout the whole 20th century.”

一个多世纪以前，结核病和1918年的流感大流行等疾病“对建筑风格有着很大影响，非常通透的疗养院应运而生，其设计重点在于阳台、光线和空气，”罗伯特·斯特恩建筑事务所(Robert A.M. Stern Architects)的合伙人保罗·惠伦(Paul Whalen)说道。“无论这是否是潜意识的创造，那种建筑对整个20世纪的住宅建筑有着重大影响。”

We asked architects whose firms have helped shape New York in recent years how apartment design may evolve in the years ahead.

至于未来的公寓设计可能会如何演化，我们咨询了一些建筑师，他们的事务所近年来帮助塑造了纽约的建筑。

Working from home with the help of digital tools was a trend long before the pandemic hit. Now that it’s widely accepted as a productive way to work, it is likely here to stay in a significant way, even after offices reopen. As a result, some architects believe residential design will take cues from recent developments in office and college-campus design.

早在疫情之前，使用数字化的工具在家办公已经成了趋势。现在，人们普遍认为这是一种高效的办公方式，即使在办公室重开后，居家办公在很大程度上也会延续下去。因此，有建筑师相信，近来办公室和大学校园的设计发展会对住宅设计产生影响。

“The home is still one of those places where you find single-purpose spaces, and that, surely, is going to change,” said Maitland Jones, a partner at Deborah Berke Partners. “One thing we see on college campuses is that no one builds single-purpose spaces anymore. Boundaries between where one studies, where one socializes, where one eats, where one sleeps are diminishing.”

“家目前依然是一种单一目的的空间，这种情况必定会改变，”德博拉·博克合伙人事务所(Deborah Berke)的合伙人梅特兰·琼斯(Maitland Jones)说。“我们可以看到，没有人会再在大学校园中建造单一目的的空间了。人们学习、社交、吃饭和睡觉的空间界限越来越模糊。”

When thoughtfully designed, rooms in an apartment can also serve multiple functions. “If the dining room is not going to be a casualty of the pandemic, but rather a beneficiary,” Mr. Jones said, “it has to do quick shifts from dining mode to work mode to probably a third mode,” serving as a bedroom, say, or a media room.

精心设计后，公寓房间可以满足多种功能。“不能让餐厅成为疫情的受害者，而是受益者，它得有能力迅速从用餐模式转成工作模式，可能还要有第三个模式”，比如用作卧室或媒体室。

Room sizes could also change to create more flexibility. “The open office has become a rule in so many different industries, and yet we need lots of little tiny spaces where one can either make a private call or have a very small videoconference,” Mr. Jones said. “Homes could easily be like that.”

为了使房间更灵活，大小也要改变。“开放式办公室在很多行业都成了老规矩，但我们依然需要很多小空间，让人们打私人电话，或进行小型的视频会议，”琼斯说。“家中很容易打造这样的空间。”

When the firm CetraRuddy was designing Rose Hill, a new condominium at 30 East 29th Street in Manhattan, the architects were thinking along similar lines and included a “flex-space” in numerous apartments: a windowless alcove smaller than a bedroom that can be closed off with sliding glass doors.

CetraRuddy公司在设计曼哈顿东29街30号的新公寓玫瑰山(Rose Hill)时，建筑师们就有类似想法，想在许多公寓里安置一处“灵活空间”：一间没有窗户的凹室，比卧室小，关上玻璃滑门后就能与外界隔绝。

“It’s a space where you can set up a home office, a library,” or a learning space for children, said John Cetra, one of the firm’s founding principals. “It wasn’t like we were planning for a pandemic, but it is something that people living in the city, I think, will really come to appreciate.”

“你可以把这个空间布置成家庭办公室或书房”，或是孩子学习的地方，公司创始人之一约翰·塞特拉(John Cetra)说。“虽然当时并非为了应对疫情而设计，但我认为这会得到城市居民的喜爱。”

After spending so much time indoors, having access to fresh air and nature at home is likely to become a priority.

长时间呆在室内之后，在家也能呼吸到新鲜空气和接触大自然很可能会成为重点。

“The one thing I find most people really complaining about is this feeling of being confined in a space,” said Morris Adjmi, a New York-based architect.

“我发现，大多数人抱怨的是被困在密闭空间里的压迫感，”纽约建筑师莫里斯·阿吉麦(Morris Adjmi)说。

One way to provide a closer connection to nature, he said, may be with larger courtyard gardens, like the 25,000-square-foot green space he planned with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates at Front & York, a new apartment complex in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

他说，亲近自然的一种方式是建更大的庭院花园。在位于布鲁克林邓波区(Dumbo)的新公寓大楼Frank & York里，他与麦可·范·瓦尔肯伯合伙人事务所(Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates)规划了约2300平方米的绿色空间。

Or it could be accomplished with more balconies and terraces, like the ones CetraRuddy designed at 200 East 59th Street, a 35-story tower wrapped by terraces on every level to provide each apartment with outdoor space.

设计更多的阳台和露台也能达到这个目的，就像CetraRuddy在东59街200号设计的公寓楼一样。这栋35层的建筑在每一层都设有露台，让每一间公寓都有户外空间。

Mr. Whalen offered another idea: “In a tight city, where every square foot is expensive to build, it can also be done with, say, French doors in a living room” and a Juliet balcony, he said. “In a way, the whole living room, or whole dining room, could sort of feel like an outside loggia.”

惠伦提出了另一个想法：“拥挤的城市寸土寸金，要达到目的，也可以在客厅里装上法式落地玻璃门”和朱丽叶阳台。“这样，整间客厅或餐厅会有种室外凉廊的感觉。”

The simplest solution, however, could be a return to large, operable windows and designs for cross ventilation to encourage breezes, which apartments in newer buildings sometimes lack.

但是，最简单的解决办法是重新使用大的可开窗和对流通风的设计，这样可以促进空气流通。较新的公寓有时缺乏这种设计。

Facades on glass buildings could open wider to the outdoors, said Angelica Trevino Baccon, a partner at SHoP Architects, like those her firm designed for Uber’s new headquarters in San Francisco, where large glass panels open like bifold doors.

玻璃大楼的正面可以朝室外开放多一些，SHoP建筑事务所的合伙人安吉利卡·特维诺·巴肯(Angelica Trevino Baccon)说。正如她的公司为优步(Uber)位于旧金山的新总部所做的设计，大楼上的玻璃面板可以像双折门一样打开。

“Fresh air is just so important for wellness,” she said, and natural ventilation also helps reduce energy consumption.

“新鲜空气对于健康非常重要，”她说，自然通风还可以减少能源消耗。

In cities like New York, where apartments can seem laughably small, it’s not unusual to shop for a single roll of toilet paper or groceries for just one meal to keep from overloading precious storage space. But with trust in supply chains now shaken, having sufficient storage space is likely to become essential, resulting in bigger, more efficiently planned closets and pantries.

在纽约这样的城市，公寓小得荒唐。为了不让珍贵的储存空间超出负荷，只买一卷卫生纸或是一餐的食物并不奇怪。但随着人们对供应链的信心出现动摇，拥有足够的储存空间可能会变得至关重要，这样可能会衍生出更大、规划得更有效的衣柜和食品储藏室。

“It’s about being creative with how the square footage is used, and specific cabinets or closets that are more flexible or have more storage space,” Mr. Adjmi said.

“重点是要有创意地使用建筑面积，让特定的橱柜或衣柜有更灵活的用途或更大的储存空间，”阿吉麦说。

Kitchen appliances in smaller apartments may also swell in size after shrinking in recent decades. “Our refrigerators kept getting smaller and smaller,” Ms. Baccon said, including under-counter models that seemed acceptable when people were dining out regularly.

近几十年来，小型公寓里的厨房电器越来越小，但未来可能也会重新变大。“我们的冰箱越来越小，”巴肯说。经常外食的人甚至可以接受迷你的柜台下冰箱。

“But now this idea of storage, and being able to have food for more than a week, is a thing,” she said. “I had never thought about a chest freezer until now.”

“但现在储存空间及拥有超过一周的食物的观念正流行起来，”她说。“我以前从来没有想过买冰柜。”

A heightened awareness of how people pick up viruses from the surfaces they touch will lead to more widespread adoption of smart-home technology, Mr. Cetra predicted.

塞特拉预测，人们开始深刻地意识到，接触物体表面可能会感染病毒，这会让智能家居科技越来越普及。

“Maybe it’s going to become a new standard where your lights will go on automatically,” and your door will unlock when you come home, he said, noting that such technology is readily available but usually considered a specialty add-on. “Or you’ll be able to talk to the elevator,” instead of pressing buttons.

他说：“也许会出现新的标准，家里的灯自动开启，”家门会在回家时自动打开。他指出，这种技术已经存在了，但人们通常认为这是一种特别的附加功能。“或是可以用声音控制电梯”，不再需要按键。

Indoor ventilation systems could also be upgraded. “There will be a great improvement in mechanical systems, air-conditioning and heating that will perhaps provide more fresh air so you get more air turnover in an apartment,” Mr. Whalen said.

室内通风系统也会升级。“机械系统、空调和暖气系统都会得到很大的提高，提供更多新鲜空气，让公寓里的空气更加流通，”惠伦说。

“Filters will be improved, and even ways of perhaps killing bacteria and viruses will be improved, so that people feel really safe in their apartments,” he added. “All those systems are going to be brought up to a new level of sophistication.”

“过滤系统也会得到改善，甚至消毒杀菌的方式也会得到提升，让人们在公寓里感到安全，”他补充说。“上述所有系统都将变得更加先进。”

“The idea of the great front entrance hall, where you make a transition between the outside world and the world of your apartment, I think has become more important now,” Mr. Whalen said. “It’s become a health issue.”

“正门的入门走廊是外部世界和公寓内部世界之间的过渡区域，我觉得人们现在更重视它了，”惠伦说。“这关乎健康问题。”

A proper foyer where people can take off their shoes and unload packages — a space that was sometimes eliminated in contemporary floor plans — is likely to be a feature apartment hunters prize.

当代设计平面图中有时候会省略一个像样的前厅，但让人们能脱鞋、拆包裹的空间将会成为公寓中珍贵的特色。

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a separate room, Mr. Whalen said. In smaller units, an entrance area might be created by a single wall that conceals views through the unit and creates a sense of enclosure. But “it needs to be accompanied by a front-hall closet,” he said.

惠伦说，这不一定非得是一个单间。在更小的单位里，可以用一面墙制造屏障的感觉，遮挡单位中的景象，创造入户区域。但“它需要跟前厅橱柜结合使用”，他说。

On a larger scale, many architects expect a greater appreciation for public spaces that will drive improvements outside the home.

从更大的范围来看，许多建筑师期望家外的空间会因为人们更珍视公共空间而改善。

“That kind of civic responsibility that comes around, on the one hand, with our masks, should also come around in the way that we design buildings,” Mr. Whalen said, noting that apartment buildings that positively contribute to a city’s streetscape are beneficial even to people who don’t live there.

“人们开始有了公民责任，戴上了口罩。一方面，我们设计大楼的时候也应该负担起这种责任，”惠伦说。他指出，对街道景观有正面影响的公寓楼对非居民也会有益。

Mr. Jones also predicted innovations in shared outdoor spaces.

琼斯预测，公共的户外空间也会有创新。

“I anticipate a new focus on civic life, on public spaces that benefit everyone — parks, sidewalks, streets,” he said. “Let’s share in this kind of fantasy that some good stuff will come out of the pandemic.”

“我预测人们会关注对所有人都有益的公民生活和公共空间——公园、走道和街道，”他说。“让我们共同幻想，这次疫情会促进一些好的事物诞生。”