Housing and urban design for COVID-19 pandemic; design for prevention of virus spread

Abstract

The new COVID-19 disease, which is affecting the world and has infected and killed many people, has rapidly changed people’s lifestyles and, accordingly, changed people’s needs, including their demands on their living environment. As the disease progressed, people were forced to stay at home to escape the disease. Even cities and public spaces could no longer be used. These situations, as well as the anxiety caused by this unknown disease, quickly led to mental health problems such as depression, isolation, aggression, stress, and physical illnesses due to inactivity. Given that the living environment of people, and above all, their homes, has a direct impact on the physical and mental health of people, profound and fundamental changes and decisions in the design and construction of houses are necessary for this situation where people have to spend most of their time in their homes. On the other hand, people need to socialize with each other and do their daily and essential tasks easily, even in a pandemic situation. Therefore, the urban design must also have significant changes in accordance with these conditions. In this article, we will review the design strategies of the city and the design and construction of houses to better respond to them in such situations.

A Health Issue in Urban Politics After the Pandemic COVID-19 Outbreak

“…In conclusion, however, it must be acknowledged that the entirely valid postulate of "designing cities for health" [35] still needs theoretical concretization and a lot of effort to be put into practice.…”

“…Such solutions include DPTT (Digital Proximity Tracing Technology) and DDEIS (Data-Driven Epidemic Intelligence Strategies). Shahbazian [35] focuses on practical solutions towards designing cities to ensure the health of their inhabitants. Such solutions include: "expansion of cycling infrastructure, expansion of green spaces and public open space, lack of focus on public facilities in one place, housing design and home design strategies in the face of COVID-19, management of resource consumption, especially water resources, health and waste management".…”

Assessing Urban Policies in a COVID-19 World

“…Such solutions include DPTT (Digital Proximity Tracing Technology) and DDEIS (Data-Driven Epidemic Intelligence Strategies). Shahbazian [51] focused on practical solutions toward designing cities to ensure the health of their inhabitants. Such solutions include: the 'expansion of cycling infrastructure, expansion of green spaces and public open space, lack of focus on public facilities in one place, housing design and home design strategies in the face of COVID-19, management of resource consumption, especially water resources' and 'health and waste management'.…”

Living Space at Pandemic: Understanding Behaviour, Space Organization, and Potential COVID-19 Family Cluster

“…When conventional things are unreliable, technology will take on a role, residential houses should provide certain health and safety protective such as the application of new touchless technologies (Tokazhanov et al 2020), avoiding air recirculation and avoiding overcrowding using existing systems (Kampf et al 2020). Research proves that a good cross ventilation system is expected to reduce transmission, realizing this, houses should have access to green open spaces and more flexible accessible and visible green space (Shahbazian 2021). From space organization, another thing to pay attention to is (1) window placement; (2) lighting levels (3) bedrooms designed; (4) living rooms with better indoor air quality, with a focus on natural ventilation; (5) access to nature (6) unit sizes and layouts that enable physical distancing and prevent crowding (Peters and Hallerran 2021).…”