This is episode 10 of the Disobedient Buildings podcast, an AHRC funded project at the University of Oxford.
Our focus is on the everyday lives of people living in ageing blocks of flats in three European countries the UK, Romania and Norway.
My name is Inge Daniels, and in this final episode,
I will be joined by Anna Andersen and Gabriela Nicolescu to discuss how COVID 19 has influenced domestic life in the three countries we study.
Yeah, I mean, in the Norwegian site, we see that certain issues that might have been present before COVID has,
let's say, become more evident during the pandemic. In Oslo, immigrant communities have been hit harder by the pandemic than other communities.
And what we could read from from the media is that this has to do with larger families who live together in smaller quarters and also
the fact that many immigrants in Norway work in transportation or service industries where working from home just isn't an option.
What we see then, is that these these issues that has become clear during the pandemic like it relates back to to these issues we also had before,
such as the difficulty people have coming into the property ladder and being
able to own a home and having to move frequently or not having enough space.
If one person got COVID, then if you live very close together, then the rest of the family would also most likely get get COVID.
I mean, in field work, I also seen how I think all residents talk about how noise has been an issue.
When you live in a block of flats, I think, you know, noise that's always been an issue for people,
neighbours having parties or if the block is centrally located, you hear people in the evening walking past.
But what we see is that there is noise reports, both from within the block.
A lot to do with renovation projects that people have started during the pandemic and the lockdown,
and also noise coming from outside the blocks where you have youth clubs who have been closed
for the duration of the pandemic and the youth hang out in the streets instead of being indoors.
And what we see is that, you know, this is causing friction between groups and between communities.
And I think, I mean, sound in itself is a very interesting thing to explore when it comes to blocks of flats and when it comes to to architecture,
because sound quite often, you know, it does carry three walls and over fences.
So beats like frictions and conflicts that that then go through the building and creates,
in the sense, also a relationship between people who live in the building or live in the community,
often like they can boil down to an issue of sound and the fact also that, you know,
noise can directly affect you or your health and well-being, which I think is key.
Ana's observation on sound is very important, and definitely it's something that people mentioned about in the Romanian side.
It seems that the pandemic made people in Romania much more aware of the sound surrounding them,
the noises their neighbours produce, but also who are their neighbours.
If before the pandemic, most of the younger people who were employed were busy working from morning till late during the pandemic.
Many people spend more time in their flats and they had more time to listen to whatever others were doing so,
other than rediscovering what kind of music neighbours listened or whatever conversations they have.
People have also rediscovered different other spaces in their home because of the pandemic.
I have been told that balconies became very used and many people started to buy
small tables and chairs and started to use these spaces an extra extra space.
In fact, when we asked participants to to show us images of green spaces,
some people took pictures in the balcony with the flowers in the balcony because this is not only just a coincidence.
Many of the parks in Bucharest have been closed and we can judge and we can say what kind of management of of people is this.
But I think it has to do with the fact that Bucharest, it is quite a dense city with very few parks,
and whenever people get out, parks are crowded and that would infringe the social distancing rules and regulations.
And authorities didn't know what else to do, but just closed the parks, which created two paradoxical reactions.
Some people just remained in their own flats, and as I as I said before, we discovered different the balcony and other spaces,
others trying to escape Bucharest and felt too too claustrophobic inside of their own box.
And if they had a house in the countryside, they went there.
It's interesting that I think our research during the pandemic also showed the importance of the social life and the importance of communities.
Some people said that in the blocks they felt protected and even hearing the neighbours
would would make them feel safe if they needed by any chance some shopping to be done.
They would ask a neighbour to do it, and in some cases, neighbours would help them in other in other contexts.
I think the fear was so strong, especially amongst the elderly, that many of them have been heavily affected.
So even for research, it was very difficult to to to re approach people physically.
I think this obsession with with keeping the distance and not touching,
not not breathing the same air affected so much people that it took many months
for them to want again to meet in the small green area in front of the block.
So especially the elderly, were very much affected by this, and I think some of them are still affected.
Interesting to hear the different themes that have emerged during the pandemic, and of course,
that is linked with what we were able to do and how our message or fieldwork developed.
I think as well. And in my case, until now, I have rarely been able to go inside people's flats.
So although of course, to the packs when gets an insight to what's going on,
but I've been mainly been doing walks with people in their area and one of the themes, very much like Anna was seeing, is actually this issue of noise.
And and it's interesting because initially many participants when the lockdown just opened,
they talked about empty streets and empty skies and the peace and quiet they had that
they never experienced both in their neighbourhoods but also inside their homes.
And then this huge contrast soon in London emerged when, after quite a few weeks,
actually construction workers were allowed to get back into the city.
They were the only ones who were given special permission.
So what happened was they worked at much greater speeds and much greater noise that we've ever experienced before.
So it's this huge contrast that people mention with this kind of few weeks of almost complete quiet no planes,
no cars or noise in central London and then all at once, this noise of the construction.
Work and roadworks erupting because many councils took advantage of people not being here and having all the
roads repaired and also building like cycle paths and so many changes were going on and the infrastructure,
road infrastructure and construction work that almost erupted into this noise we never experienced before.
So that was one thing that was really quite striking. And Gabriela's well by people working at home.
It seems that people became hypersensitive to this kind of noise as well.
And just to show, tell you or demonstrate the speeds by which construction was going on was on many of my walks.
People would literally say, Look, this building wasn't there three months before or three months ago, and now they just all they done.
We didn't know it was here, so. So that worked very much in favour of construction companies and developers, I think,
but also buildings being torn down at great speeds, perhaps with less scrutiny as they would usually get, I think pre-pandemic.
So I think there's lots of ongoing issues there, actually in episode two.
Danny Dorling really comments on this phenomenon in London, where it's very common for even before the pandemic,
for ongoing construction, very close to people's homes with very little.
If you want regulations, there are some, but it's quite unusual to have this constantly going on in your neighbourhood.
I think that's one of the specificity I think of London as well.
And then the second issue that's come up is, of course,
we live in the centre of London and again for three months, people talked about how quiet it was.
But then soon after the first lockdown, these businesses, of course, which is understandably reopened and they could only serve outside.
And this led to a number of what we call alfresco schemes.
So where if you walked into Soho, all the streets after 5pm were packed with people sitting outside?
So this has become like a mainland European city where people sit on the squares with the streets of Soho became like European squares.
And although these residents in Soho and some of my participants live in,
so we're very used to late night shouting and chanting and all kinds of disturbances.
But again, the scale and the level of this has just been unseen,
and at the moment they're actually fighting the local council, which is thinking of extending the scheme indefinitely.
So that's something a fight that has occurred doing my fieldwork that people are struggling with is very much.
Thank you for listening to the Disobedient Buildings podcast edited by Anna Andersen and produced by Jack Soper.
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