Building a post-covid neighbourhood

Context: Need to reimagine the built environment in the city in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Innovating future of architecture: Architects are focused towards the following outcomes:

1. Decongest market spaces keeping social distancing norms in mind.
2. Ensure safeguards like kiosks for sanitizers, oximeters, and thermometers are available to everybody. 
3. Provision of a home within a home to act as a quarantine chamber if needed again in the future.

Historical precedence:  

• Central Park, New York was established in 1849 to act as “outlets for foul air and inlets for pure air" in combating cholera outbreak.
• Adolf Loos’ modernist creation, Villa Müller, in Prague (1930) had included a separate space where sick children could be quarantined. 

• Traditional architecture to tackle disaster and climate change:

• Mishing homes, in Assam are built on stilts to cope up with the floods.
• Mud and bricks are employed in vernacular architectures to combat rising temperatures in India.

Reimagining the architecture: 

• Keeping in mind the local landscape and climate: it is possible to have modern architecture.

• E.g.: In Rudraprayag, after a flash flood in 2013, disaster-resilient structure for a community radio station was created using local material.

• Decongest and decentralize: E.g. open mall, City Centre, in Salt Lake, Kolkata, designed by Charles Correa, with a complex system of open spaces suiting diverse needs.
• Reclaim the outdoors: Necessary as some of the indoor space can be oppressive for women/children.

• It may be a good idea to create a series of interconnected open and semi-open spaces, such as thresholds, verandahs, courtyards and gardens. 

Six architects that are re-envision: 

• Semi-outdoor spaces- a space for expression: Balconies, terraces and verandahs serve the dual purpose of becoming windows to ourselves and the world. 
• E.g. -In Milan, Italy, during the lockdown, the balcony became a space for expression—of anxiety, isolation, appreciation, and of reaching out to the community.
• Multifunctional homes- Dwellings 2.0: Minimalist spaces with lightweight movable walls could transform daily, into realms for work and recreation.
• E.g.: A bedroom can be made to use for activities other than sleeping like yoga, online learning for child and work from home.  
• Minimalistic homes are rooted in the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi and Indian craftsmanship.
• Civic planning:  
• • • Focus on street and low-income housing settlements where there is a competition to share single toilet and are thus disconnected from sanitation infrastructures.
    • Need to involve citizens and take input from them.

• Keeping a threshold on space: 

• Maintain outdoor ‘threshold’:  to bring structural changes in cleanliness and disinfection practices. For E.g. people coming from outside should be asked to clean their hands before entering.

• The new architecture should be centered on people, not space. 

• Adding resilience to homes: Every house to have a tiny strip of the land outside that will allow you to grow your own food.
• Using Technology to reclaim open spaces:
  • Making the outdoor environment more comfortable using temperature control and passive design methods.
  • Lightweight tensile roof structures are being used as protection from rain and sun.
  • Addition of external air filters for better air quality and sonic mosquito control systems. 
• Decongesting Neighbourhood markets: The new architecture should create efficient neighbourhood markets, multilevel car parks and revitalizing small parks at the center.

Conclusion: A great crisis such as this has the potential to create systemic changes.