On the Street: In-Between Architecture by Edwin Heathcote. Heni Books, 288 pp., $45.
It is strange, now—almost unthinkably strange—to recall the period in which it was not legally permissible to leave one’s house for more than one daily excursion during the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK, at which time the outdoors itself became a threat and an object of desire. Unluckily, I contracted Covid in the first week of the first national lockdown in March 2020, and then watched in horror as the symptoms carried on, expanding with no end in sight; for some time, I was not strong enough to take even the daily walk I was allowed, and my bed became the center of my universe, my world diminished. When I finally ventured back out, it was as if I were doing so in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event, which given the global death toll, I suppose I was—I suppose we all were. Everything was quieter, emptier, and stripped of traffic. Everything seemed novel, in a way that was frightening and also sort of thrilling. We became neurotic about being near each other…