During the COVID-19 pandemic, Work from home (WFH) received much public attention. Imposing such a measure was feasible in the context of labour markets’ flexibilisation, which has reshaped urban live-work relationships. However, the pandemic’s effects on those relationships have rarely been explored in housing and planning studies. This paper draws a research agenda based on a literature review of the changes in urban live-work relationships, which were accelerated and legitimised under COVID-19. The latter is considered an exogenous shock contingent upon several other shocks, embedded in structural crises and accelerating ongoing trends. The literature confirms the acceleration of hybrid work for those able to do so, which has fuelled debates on home usage and legitimated planning discourses based on urban proximity, densification and mixed use. Hence, we encourage critical research on (i) the conceptualisations of WFH and COVID-19, (ii) housing policy responses to accumulated uncertainties and regulations for quality and resilient housing, and (iii) the critical analysis of WFH-oriented planning.

Immediately after WW2 numerous large-scale housing estates began to spring up. More often than not they consisted of high-rises. Merely 50 years later a great number of these developments are in the process of demolition or are seriously undergoing restructuring. The Modernistic thoughts, inspired by the CIAM (Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne) movement and Le Corbusier seem to have lost the appeal they once held. In this contribution we look into this evolution and more specifically, we focus on the misinterpretation of the importance of the (symbolic) meaning of housing by the Modernist movement. A misjudgement, that eventually resulted in the speedy dismantling of these estates.