Are Public Spaces Dying?

Restrictions on the use of public space and social distancing have been few of the key measures to reduce the transmission of Covid-19. While half of the world's population has been asked to stay home and avoid public places, it has changed the way we live, interact, transit and spend. Especially when it comes to the prospect of using spaces like airports, hotels, hospitals, gyms, and offices. Everyone is having a different experience. While someone like an essential worker, has to use the public space to transit. There are people privileged enough to find solace in their home and spend time in their quiet solitude.

Despite it all, an uncertainty prevails. 

An Unprecedented Change

2020 isn’t the first time that the world has been hit with a deadly virus at such a massive scale. Successively, every pandemic in the past has brought a change in how cities used to function. For instance, the 19th century Cholera pandemic, which shaped some of the world’s most famous landscapes. Consider Haussmann’s renovation of 1800s Paris. Or London's reconfiguration of its sewage system. Or New York’s reaction to the conditions of tenement housing that led to the conceptualization of Central Park. It also led to the ‘public-ness of a city’ becoming a necessary tool for urban planning. Documented in the books of history, the pandemic demanded a reimagination of the way people lived. And now, these books ought to be revisited again.

Planners, designers, architects have been writing about how the ongoing covid-19 crisis will transform spaces. Also the need for every profession to step up and contribute to their own community’s health.

As designers, this has essentially made us question our own value system. Social empathy and integrated user experience have been a major determinant of public design. A building’s form, materiality and functioning are deep-rooted in the way it interacts with its neighborhood. Now with an increasing understanding of the disease, the future demands us to introspect for an alternative response. One rooted in the need to ‘adapt.’ 

A Possible Future

In a hemisphere, where physical gathering can potentially lead to fatal consequences, public life won’t remain the same. But rather than obliterating, the pandemic will redefine our practices. The importance of urbanity and density in city planning won’t change overnight. Nor will the built form segregate and undergo a massive transformation. Your trade routes won’t start to function differently and floors would still be designed flat. 

But there will be a value addition. A reconfiguration of what we perceive as an ideal ‘public space.’ 

Temporary Interventions

With less density and hyper-awareness, countries have been taking due precautions in the last three months. Privatization and isolation have overtaken the need for physical collaboration. Singapore, Myanmar, US, India, Hong Kong etc are implementing physical distancing through tactical urbanism. Temporary tools like tape, barricades or chalk powder are being used to dictate an ordered movement on streets.

Read More: Tactical Urbanism Is Shaping Our Future

Technology

There is a resounding consciousness of public spaces becoming automated. Be it touchless technology like automatic doors, voice-activated elevators, switches or temperature controls. Gadgets that won’t need physical contact like cellphone-controlled entries, robots or drones. (Source)

Figure 1: Colombian startup Rappi is piloting food deliveries by robot. Source: Reuters/David Estrada

Pedestrian and Bicycle Lanes

Restrictions have led to less mobility of cars, increased presence of cycles and decreased pollution rates. This is being leveraged as an opportunity to make planning decisions from a 'health perspective.' For instance, in New Zealand, transport minister Julie Genter has invited cities to apply for 90% funding to widen sidewalks and create temporary cycleways. The intent is to provide extra space for key workers to mobilize while maintaining a physical distance. Similarly, Milan has also sanctioned the construction of 35 km of bike lanes which will result in the removal of vehicular lanes. Hope is that this will lead to a healthier city and a low carbon economy.

Rooftops

Restriction on public movement in many countries also saw people using private spaces like balconies and rooftops for social congregation. Be it Paris, choosing to sing songs to bring up community spirits or people in London using balconies to support essential workers. 

As a staggering amount of rooftops either remain underused or poorly equipped, its potential as a public avenue is waiting to be explored. Chicago and Barcelona have identified thousands of such grey rooftops, few of which have now been converted into gardens. (Source)

Figure 2: The rooftop garden on Chicago’s City Hall. Source: APImages

Green Parks

The conundrum of needing green parks and reducing physical contact will bring major revaluations. While people will be conscious not to take part in large gatherings, it’s potential as a flexible asset will be appreciated in the long run. Cities like New York have converted green parks into emergency field hospitals while India is accommodating migrant workers in its empty malls. 

Within the perimeter of physical distancing, architects will have to build public spaces that enable people to spread out. It can be either via designing wide running trails or extending pedestrian paths. There may also be a demand for smaller green spaces in every neighborhood. 

Conceptual green space designs around those thematic ideas are also being proposed by architecture firms like Studio Prech. They proposed a design that guides it’s visitors by parallel lanes throughout the maze-like undulating landscape. Each having an entrance and an exit, to indicate if the 600m long path is occupied or free to stroll.

Figure 3: Shaped like a fingerprint, the park imagined by Studio Prech in Vienna can be implemented in any city around the globe. Source: Studio Precht

Final Note 

We are witnessing a whirlwind of transformation in how public spaces have been utilized. And along with it, questions driving the uncertainty over its use. Can we even occupy public spaces without getting infected? If not, where will we exercise our traditional routines? If yes, then what will these spaces look like? These conversations are questioning the conventional methods of planning. Which in return is helping us to find suitable approaches during and after CoVid.

As we come in terms with a different world post-pandemic, we need to broaden up towards a lot of possibilities. As architect Dan Meis states “This experience has illustrated that it really is a very tiny world and we all are connected. We just may have to become a bit less physically so.”

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