0000000000103893
AUTHOR
Martijn De Waal
Challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and design responses in public space: Towards strategies for resilient post-Covid cities
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered governments and designers to revalue and redesign public spaces. This paper focuses on the various design responses to Covid-19 proposed and implemented in public spaces. In particular, we identify the kinds of challenges that such design responses address and the strategies that they use. We selected 56 design examples, largely collected from internet sources. By analyzing the design examples we identified five Covid-related challenges that were addressed in public space: sustaining amenities, keeping a distance, feeling connected, staying mentally healthy, and expanding health infrastructures. For each challenge, we articulated 2 to 6 design strategies. The…
Lo spazio pubblico adattivo: esplorare la transizione digitale per il benessere sociale e ambientale
The present social and environmental challenges, the impact of climate change and the pandemic, revealed the urgency and the opportunity to rethink urban design through its renewed spaces and temporalities. The pandemic offered a ‘natural experiment’ to explore and develop new perspectives, making public spaces more resilient. Contributing towards a rethink of these spaces, the present paper explores adaptive architecture with responsive technologies and their capability of shaping public spaces to constitute a conversation piece with the surrounding environment. This approach combines and reflects different disciplinary fields: architecture, civic interaction and urban design. The explorat…