# 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. balcony; architecture; survey; psychology of design; users' preferences; perception; COVID-19 +
Footnote †: journal: Medical  
to the pressure of remote work policies (e.g., increasing telework) that require a workplace within the \"home\" boundaries (e.g., office) and, consequently, an indoor layout redesign/redefinition [9; 10]. The second stems from the amount of time spent at home, which increased the importance of having a safe, private outdoor space (e.g., balcony, terrace, or garden) whose features enable physical and mental escape, outdoor leisure time, and contact with the external surroundings [7; 11; 12]. As history informs us, this type of \"awakening\" and its call for change occurred in previous pandemics, as people pushed for new spatial designs to decrease the likelihood of viral infection [10]. The balcony concept, in particular, was perceived as an element with several benefits as it brings light, fresh air, sun, shade, and recreation to people's life [13]. Therefore, the changes promoted by the pandemic shook the existing paradigm in the way indoor and outdoor living spaces are thought of [12]; particularly, the balcony concept has gained new momentum and, consequently, a new vagueness. Its existence, functions, features, borders, and the relationship between the indoor space and the surroundings are now an unclear territory calling for clarification, particularly in European contexts. This issue impacts how the future balcony will be planned and designed, potentially affecting people's quality of life and ability to withstand new pandemic events safely. The present study intends to fill this gap and open the discussion to the community (see Figure 1 for theoretical framework understanding). Addressing the recommendations by [PERSON] et al. [14] demanding further design studies on the subject, and in line with the \"post-pandemic housing\" research questions by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [10], it is of interest to understand how the home balcony is perceived today, during pandemic times in European context, in the light of people's needs concerning design issues and activities. Therefore, the present study proposes to assess the preferences of a selected group of key informants (KI) toward design features and activities performed on a balcony today. The authors resort to a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) through an online survey to be conducted among Architecture master students at Lisbon School of Architecture--University of Lisbon, Portugal, and Faculty of Architecture, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. Due to their academic background and training, the KI possess the skills and will to address this issue. In addition, they will be both users and designers of balconies throughout their professional careers.