Protected by Protocol

I was sitting having my coffee this morning thinking about public health as I watched somebody blur their personal interior with the exterior world of the cafe.

I grew up at a time when it was still the fashion to solve all public health issues through a conceptual quarantine, all people, individuals, separated by space and behavior. We were all taught to be very conscious of that separation. That model still holds, but the consciousness and responsibility has been swapped for hand sanitizer.

This made me think of the public health criticism that has been and will be leveled against architectural types like the cubicle hotel, and other social constructions which bring people closer together. I think it is time to develop another model of public health which will better protect us than the subconscious quarantine model we are using now.

Appropriate behavior will always be a primary component of any system to maintain health, and awareness of what is appropriate (and when) is the easiest way to bring about appropriate behavior. The quarantine philosophy is basically anti-social, and since human beings are social animals, one of the ways that consciousness of appropriate behavior has been reduced to a rule of thumb is: "you know how you'd like to behave; well don't". Separating us into units has brought about a great deal of unhappiness and fear.

Understanding what is individual, and what is common might be the start to understanding how to live in close proximity to other people without an extraordinary risk of becoming sick. This is manifested by seeing and maintaining one's own form in one's own mind.

Understanding the limits of one's physical body, and actively maintaining the integrity of the state on either side of the divide would be the next step. Acting on one's exterior side in a careful way to temper the forces found there would soften the environment we, as creatures on the Earth, would need to negotiate.

Hygiene would take on a different look in that the goal would not be a world without germs, but a world which was gentle enough that our bodies could negotiate it, and a world where we could maintain our form without a constant extraordinary assault to it.

The physical space we create to occupy would be judged at a different level, as the built divisions between people became simpler. Instead of demanding fully separate units of dwelling, the arrangements within larger units would be understood and controlled, and the performance of materials and forms which would compose such units would be required to be demonstrated and maintained.

At the moment, there are almost no requirements for functional arrangements within a basic dwelling unit, there is only required to be a set of features. As the number and diversity of people in a given unit increases, the functionality of the components of health within the space becomes more important, and would need to be designed and regulated with their impact on health and cleanliness foremost in mind. Living with one's one filth has less impact on one's health than living in the filth of others (preferably the accumulation of filth itself is controlled).

Designing and regulating the durability and cleanability of the materials and the their constructed arrangement in occupied spaces is another component of breaking down the physical divisions between people.

Education and image building is the final, and most important component of maintaining the public health. Altering the cultural perspective about personal responsibility to others' safety, teaching the understanding of one's own personal power to maintain one's own form in life, and establishing the expectation for the arrangement and maintenance of one's exterior environment would be the components for a successful switch to a more humane aggregation of us together.