Building Pandemic Resilience in the Design of Complex Public Buildings

Title:
Building Pandemic Resilience in the Design of Complex Public Buildings- Radically Extending Graph Theory of Spatial Configuration for the Control and Prevention of Disease Spread
Summery:
The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has posed urgent challenges in the reopening of complex public buildings, especially those receiving large numbers of users, such as libraries, museums and galleries. Innovatively testing and extending Hillier's latest work, Li and Psarra showed that the capability of these buildings to apply reopening strategies is influenced by the spatial properties of their layout, diversifying or restricting movement choices (2020). This illustrates the practical need for an evidence-based approach to the adoption of spatial solutions for disease-control. It also demonstrates the theoretical need for placing the relationship between spatial structure and movement on firm scientific foundation. Extensive research by space syntax confirms the predictive role of spatial structure on movement rates. However, space syntax cannot describe spatial structures in a way that can make them comparable (Hillier 2019). This challenging project will extend Hillier's theory through in-depth explorations of spatial strategies for managing visitor circulation by a computational study of complex buildings before and during the pandemic, combined with behavioural data of movement. With a focus on the control and prevention of disease spread, the outcome will be: a) a computational model describing and comparing families of spatial structures; b) spatial standards for pandemic resilience assisting the capability of existing and new designs to adapt during pandemics.