Reimagining Public Spaces and Built Environments in the Post-Pandemic World, University of Alberta, December 2021University of Alberta -- Symposium (Announcement & Call),
December 10th and 11th, 2021
Keynote speakers: Kim Dovey, Sasha Tsenkova, Vivian Manasc, Ashraf Salama
The primary objective of this conference is to analysis the ongoing (post) pandemic crisis, spatial settings, and everyday users’ experience, and lessons learned for designing, building, and managing public space and the built environment. The second overarching objective is to contribute to the discourse of public space and built environment in generating knowledge that responds to emerging questions about post-pandemic future considerations, policies, and practices.
As the COVID-19 pandemic crisis hits, a shift of paradigm now demands for reshaping our (in)tangible spatial layouts from micro to macro level, apart from the ‘new normal’ of social distancing guidelines and public health measures to mitigate the spread of the virus. We have seen, the movement of the people, as well as social contact, have been reduced considerably by transformation and/or imposing restrictions on the use of public spaces often with law-enforced stay-at-home order. As this crisis in global health and restricted social interaction poses challenges, many places are leveraging communication technologies to be connected virtually online. Meanwhile, as we depended vastly on technology, the need to connect to the outdoors and accessibility to the neighborhood park became evident/vital for our mental health and well-being. Parks, urban voids-green spaces seem to be the safest places to venture while maintaining social distance. In many parts of the world, we also have seen balconies, terraces become a place for refuge to connect with the public and outdoor urban environment. To enhance the quality of public space, cities around the globe initiated tactical urbanism and/or temporality- by modifying, closing, widening streets for the pedestrians, bike lanes to provide more room for the sanity of the common ground.
From planning to design, as observed the challenge arises more on-demand inclination towards resilient planning and suggests a need for re-evaluating spatial settings for the emergent need of the new practice. As we are in the second year of the pandemic, the call for the conference ‘Reimagining Public Spaces and Built Environments in the Post-pandemic World’ seeks submissions that address the post-pandemic challenges in the public space and built environment as a means to reimagining a novel urban paradigm for socio-spatial conceptions of designing equitable and healthy communities.
Submit your abstract --
https://ai4society.ca/post-pandemic-world/
