In software design, people talk about stress testing. Pushing things to the limit, to see how it performs at the extreme end. And it's pretty clear that right now, we're in a period of stress testing the current design of our cities. And our homes.

Over the past few months, the inequalities that some individuals are typically meant to just attend to themselves, have suddenly, starkly, been shown for the structural problems they are. There are many examples, ranging from the trivial to life-threatening.

Today, we're going to explore some of the things this global stress test has brought to the surface. And what we can do about it. Because whether there's another pandemic or not, there are important lessons for us about designing for resilience and responsiveness.

+ Professor Patrick Condon, the James Taylor chair in Landscape and Livable Environments at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the founding chair of the UBC urban design program. He speaks to Nora about the lessons urban designers might learn from managing the pandemic.

+ As so many people are now working from home, and adapting to life during a pandemic, what issues in home design are being revealed? And how can those design issues be resolved for a future of flexible and safe homes and workspaces? Architect Noam Hazan explores what lessons might come from COVID.