How COVID will affect Architecture - Less and Short Transit

July 02, 2020

How COVID will affect Architecture - Less and Short Transit

We had surge of Covid infection coming from passengers from the plane flights. Studies showed that airplanes don't cross ventilate well.

This is because the air outside of the aeroplane is freezing and would bee too cold for passengers. The Air-conitioning system although has HEPA filters that traps particles of the recirculated air, cant catch what has been introduced as a coughs and sneezes.

in flight cabin

simulation in crowded place

simulation in a grocery shop

sneeze simulation in office

recent studies on the effects of face mask shows that it is the distance of droplet emitted that has bigger effect on infections. Cotton face mask tends to curtail the throw of virus making the potential of spread much less.

regular cough

using bandana mask the spread reaches1.67m

home made stitched cotton mask on reached 63mm

Sterile mask reaches 205mm

We still have to discharged exhaled contents via cross ventilation. Watch this simulation here

The keep to alleviate infection is cross ventilation. Cross ventilation is basically allowing wind force to cool the interior while forcing the warm air out.

CROSS VENTILATION Goulding, Lewis, & Steemers, 1992
The inability for airplanes to cross ventilate therefore make it more unpopular for the time being making train travel the next best thing.
Trains utilize the wind generated by its movement to move the air inside the carriage.

ICE4 TRAIN (BULLET TRAIN)

buses uses an air handling unit located at the top for air change (Evobus GmbH)

While cross ventilation can minimize your possibility of being infected, your travel distance should be short as possible. This means if you plan to travel far via rail of buses you should plan multiple short trips in series, with stop overs.
This means on an urban level, transit should be very short maybe 15 minutes the most. This can only be achieve if the entire city was mixed use.
The reason why modern city created distance between work place and homes started from
Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City

According to Wikipedia:
This book offered a vision of towns free of slums and enjoying the benefits of both town (such as opportunity, amusement and high wages) and country (such as beauty, fresh air and low rents). Howard illustrated the idea with his "Three Magnets" diagram.[3] His ideas were conceived for the context of a capitalist economic system, and sought to balance individual and community needs.
Le Corbusier offered the Radiant City to address similar iussues

The layout of Le Corbusiers ideal city was abstractly inspired by the arrangement and functions of the human body. Like a living organism, it consisted of organized parts that would work together as a whole.
An extreme example of a mixed used city or some would call a "no zone" zoning would be the infamous Kowloon walled city. It does not exist anymore as it was demolished to make way for the Chek Lap Kok Airport in Hong Kong.

The walled city was seen as a dark place, but it fitted in homes, factories, schools, medical facilities, orchestra, offices, retail, warehouses all within this tight cluster. Transit was walking or via bicycle. What was not resolved was social space, sanitary and human welfare (although they had their own independent welfare mechanism). The inhabitant seldom transit outside the wall city because they had all services available there.
A mixed used city is found in older Asian cities like in Hongkong and Japan. Singapore's HDB structure however gives a cleaner and clearer urban form. It can be sanitized easier to prevent spread of disease and therefore mixed use function within a single HDB block can be better regulated.

Mixed used district also strengthen community identity, which will bring you very special and unique product and services owing to the geographic and village response. A mature mixed use district will also be worth visiting , making them natural destination to visit. This way, a functioning village district does not have to maintain an artificial tourist destination like a zoo or a garden in air-conditioning. Instead, the human geography offers a texture and soul to the district.
To Summarize Less and Short Transit:

a. Reduces exposure to pandemic
b. It ties in with linear shops and services as oppose to loitering in air conditioned atrium..
c. In order to maintain less and short transit, the district need to be more mixed use so that people only need to walk or cycle to work.
d. This will build strong district identity which keeps the society there resilient and proud.
e. It will also encourage family trade transfer where a stockpile of experience from grandfathers to fathers builds knowledge and expertise thereby being an advantage.
f. Family Trade culture also inspires apprenticeship, this way it shift the individual looking from paper qualification to hands on practical experience. This thereby will balance the merits of and educated person and a skilled person. You need both. Not everyone is good in academia, but everyone deserves a job that pays, having practcle skill developing outside academia is the answer.
At this time of writing it may seem like a good idea, just like "stop at two" policy back then. A maturing community need to learn and gather their stockpile of experiences, the more we fail, the more experience we have which is a good thing.

It may come as a shock but games like TOWNSCAPER might be the tool to use to simulate a town's urban response in years to come. Here show a mixed use town.