This evidence review was written for Sustainable Buildings Canada (SBC), as a student assignment in a Dalhousie University course.

The recent journey of the development industry saw projects cancelled and unemployment, then a rise in demand for innovation as the world began to understand the long-term impacts of the pandemic (Kennicott, 2020). The sector must now adapt to people spending more time indoors working from home and locked down, but in need of social and mental wellbeing. Residential building design could incorporate multi-purpose living, and new developments need to consider the health of occupants in their design. In urban centres like Toronto, developments are tasked to do more with less as the city tries to limit urban sprawl and build increasingly smaller condominium units for more people (Vachon, 2018). Juan Cruz Serafini, an architect with the Lafarge Holcim Foundation offers hope as the pandemic lingers, “Architects and designers have unique skills in critical thinking and the ability to imagine new futures” (Lafarge Holcim Foundation, 2020).