Preemptive Resilience
Designing streets for preemptive resistance to the next pandemic
By: Systemic Architecture Inc.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities around the world are adapting to a new normal of confined movements and constrained social interactions. A number of studies, however, have observed that people from all around the world are finding creative ways to safely navigate and even congregate in public spaces within our cities, despite the challenges that have emerged. These creative workarounds, often implemented in an ad-hoc manner, are the first steps to finding a solution to the Main Street Challenge.
The design addresses how streets, sidewalks and public spaces can be more adaptive to these challenges. The following observed workarounds are taken into consideration: people seek more outdoor experiences, fresh air and sunlight; people exercise more outdoors, including play and recreation; children and elderly make increased use of public spaces; vehicular traffic decreases, walking and biking increase; more people spend time in public plazas; creative use of public space emerges; graphics on walking surfaces help to distribute people; and more people work at home, spending more time locally.
This design asserts that the best resistance to the next pandemic will not be a reactive resistance, but a preemptive one. Ideally, our streets will be able to absorb the effects of safe practices such as physical distancing and partial lockdowns without temporary modifications, and even during non-pandemic times, pandemic-resilient infrastructure will serve other useful purposes. This will build confidence in public spaces and resilience in local economies as people are able to resume close-to-normal life.
Details:
Budget: Estimated costs for primary design elements are provided by Chandos Construction in Calgary
Contact
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