Resilient urban form to pandemics: Lessons from COVID-19

Abstract

Background:The worldwide emergence of future pandemics emphasizes the need to assess the pandemic resilient urban form to prevent infectious disease transmission during this epidemic. According to the lessons of the COVID-19 outbreak, this study aimed to review the current strategies of responding to pandemics through disaster risk management (DRM) to develop a pandemic-resilient urban form in phases of response, mitigation, and preparedness.Methods: The research method is developed through desk study was used to explore the current literature of urban form responded to COVID-19 pandemic and for the text analysis; qualitative content analysis was applied developing a conceptual framework.Results: To create pandemic resilient urban form, this study proposes principles to enhance the urban form resiliency in 3 scales of housing, neighborhoods/public spaces, and cities. These principles focus on the concept of resilient urban form from new perspectives focusing on the physical and nonphysical aspects of resilient urban form, which develops a new understanding of pandemics as a disaster and health-related emergency risks. The physical aspect of resiliency to epidemic outbreaks includes urban form, access, infrastructure, land use, and natural environment factors. Moreover, the nonphysical aspect can be defined by the sociocultural, economic, and political (including good governance) factors. By providing and enhancing the physical and nonphysical prerequisites, several benefits can be gained and the effectiveness of all response, mitigation, and preparedness activities can be supported. Conclusion:As the pandemic's disruptions influence the citizens' lifestyle dramatically, the prominent role of place characteristics in the outbreak of pandemics, policymakers, urban planners, and urban designers should be pulled together to make urban areas more resilient places for epidemics and pandemics.

Respiratory pandemics, urban planning and design: A multidisciplinary rapid review of the literature

“…Similarly, a review of pandemic resilient cities showed these are achievable by addressing resilience at 3 scales - housing, neighbourhoods/public space, and cities ( Lak et al, 2020 ). Connectivity is crucial, the review showed; Intercity and intra city transport systems, airports, ports, hubs, CBDs and other centres of dense transactions pose essential threats to urban areas and make them vulnerable to pandemics.…”

Resilient City: Characterization, Challenges and Outlooks

“…It is now more urgent than ever to build RCs that proactively respond to public health emergencies [34]. Countries are realizing the need to rethink the status quo and be proactive to increase the resilience of communities, societies, and economies to better prepare for future unexpected disasters [35][36][37].…”

Housing post-COVID-19: Design challenges

“…Passive design strategies take advantage of natural opportunities as they relate to the location of the building's site, the local climate (site's microclimate), the properties of building materials, etc. For example, passive design strategies could include: facade design and orientation, natural indoor ventilation, noise isolation, natural indoor lighting, renewable energy, water efficiency and the selection of carbon smart materials (Zivkovic, M. & Jovanovic, G., 2012;Femenias, P. & Geromel, F., 2019;Abergel, T. et al, 2020;D'alessandro, D. et al, 2020;Lak A. et al, 2020;Mukherjee, A. et al, 2020;Rizzato, E., 2020;Tokazhanov, G. et al, 2020;Block, I., 2021;Kaklauskas, A. et al, 2021;Tleuken, A. et al, 2021;Carbon Smart Materials Palette., 2021).…”