STATE OF EXCEPTION - COVID-19 PANDEMIC REVISIONS ON DWELLING DESIGN

STATEOFEXCEPTI ON AN I NDEPTHSTUDYOFHOW THE COVI D19P ANDEMI C WI L LREVI SE OUR PERCEPTI ON OF A SUCCESSFULDWEL L I NG CL I MATE MOLL YREESJ ONES

“The plague marked the beginning of corruption for the city. No one was willing to persevere any longer in what he had previously considered to be good, because he believed that he would perhaps die before achieving it.”

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides & Smith, 2014)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my tutor Aliki Myrto Perysinaki for assisting with this study and most of my academic writings, my partner Clark and our dog Rosie for their support and my mother Lindsey and father Antony for their continuous encouragement. con

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT The presented proposal resides upon the impending societal change that may occur post COVID-19 pandemic on dwelling design. By means of analysis through the work of Giorgio Agamben along with multiple case studies that portray both a shielding and herd immunity design approach, the proposal aims to arrange prospect design frameworks required for a post-pandemic dwelling.

Conclusions from each area of study will inform the proposed design concepts in either conforming to our current state of exception or defying it.

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ABSTRACT

CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION 07 Introduction 08 Methodology

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REFLECTIONS: FROM AGAMBEN'S STATE OF EXCEPTION TO COVID 19 Analysis 12 State of Exception Agamben Pandemic

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SHIELDING CASE STUDIES 26 Case Studies 27 Shielding Port Sunlight 28 Introduction

18 An Invention of an Epidemic - A Question - New Reflections

31 Dwellings 32 Services 37 Connectivity

Focus

38 State Response & Influence

22 The Dwelling Dwe

Woven City 41 Introduction 42 Dwellings 45 Services 48 Connectivity 51 State Response & Influence Focus 52 An encouraging shielding methodology?

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CONTENTS

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HERD IMMUNITY CASE STUDIES

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56 Herd Immunity Uxcester Garden City 59 Introduction

STUDY CONCLUSIONS 82

Defining initial design frameworks through data

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Defining initial design frameworks through the current climate

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Focus

60 Dwellings 63 Services 64 Connectivity

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CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

67 State Response & Influence

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Dwelling Concept Frameworks

Urban Air Mobility City Integration

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Flexibility

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Dwelling Scenario Concepts

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Apartment Frameworks

68 Introduction 71 Dwellings 72 Services

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Apartment Model

102

Apartment Services Frameworks

104

House Frameworks

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House Model

108

House Services Frameworks

110

Feasibility

112

References Refe

115

Image References

75 Connectivity 76 State Response & Influence Focus 79 An encouraging herd immunity methodology?

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CONTENTS

Figure 2 Coronavirus Sketch

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INTRODUCTION

PHILOSOPHY STATE OF EXCEPTION – AGAMBEN – PANDEMIC

THE INVENTION OF AN EPIDEMIC - A QUESTION – NEW REFLECTIONS

THE DWELLING

CASE STUDIES OVERVIEW SERVICES

DWELLINGS

CONNECTIVITY

STATE RESPONSE & INFLUENCE

DWELLING CONCEPTS

CURRENT STATE RESPONSE & FRAMEWORKS

DESIGN

FEASIBILITY

Figure 3 Structure of Research Diagram

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METHODOLOGY

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CHAPTER ONE - AGAMBEN’S PHILOSOPHIES

Figure 4 Coronavirus and Bare Life Tim Robertson April 1, 2020

AGAMBEN’S PHILOSOPHIES

CHAPTER ONE

According to Agamben, “the theory of the state of exception saw a moment of particular fortune” during the Second World War when the metaphors of catastrophe associated with war lent weight to the narrative that being in control is both possible and desirable (Jarvos, Gaggiotti and Kars-Unluoglu, 2020). What’s most noteworthy when considering this fictitious character is its relationship with how the UK Government has vocabularied its control, or lack of in this instance, of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The virus has been anthropomorphised into an enemy that we will wrestle to the ground. We are “engaged in a war against the disease which we have to win”(Coronavirus Update, 2020), going into battle against it armed with strategies of containment and suppression, our defences manned by key workers (Jarvos, Gaggiotti and Kars-Unluoglu, 2020).

What is drastically distinctive however is the enemy. In what way do we conduct warfare on a rival that is not physically out there but has flown past borders to be in us? How can authority persist when government relies on obsolete renders? Rationalisation for the state of exception through war terminology (as questionable as it is) has however been established as a basis numerous times before, and then used to refocus on to more intense governance, with the enemy sentient or not.

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It is verified repeatedly in Agamben’s brief history of the state of exception in Europe and the United States from the introduction of the state of emergency to deal with financial crises in Germany in 1923 and France in 1925, 1935, and 1937, to union strikes and social upheaval in Britain in 1920, and perhaps most strikingly, by President Lincoln to provide basis for the abolition of slavery in 1862, and Roosevelt, to ensure passage of the New Deal in 1933.

Roosevelt’s words in this context are demonstrative: “I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis – broad Executive power to wage war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in face invaded by a foreign foe” (Roosevelt, 1938). The present “permanent state of exception” too should, Agamben indicates, be understood as a fiction sustained through military metaphor (Humphreys, 2006).

Comparably to the handling of COVID-19, the emergency is personalised and monogrammed to gain a comprehensive transnational opponent that in turn establishes everyone on the same side, including the government. We consequently sympathise with our allies (the government), and are herded to believe that the state of exception is crucial in ‘fighting the enemy’, with no protests worth mentioning.

STATE OF EXCEPTION – AGAMBEN – PANDEMIC

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STATE OF EXCEPTION – AGAMBEN – PANDEMIC

“We must act like any wartime government and do whatever it takes to support our economy.”

(Johnson, 2020)

Figure 5 Boris Johnson Sketch by Crisha Rodrigues

Subsequently, in State of Exception, Agamben alludes that under the Chancellorship and then Leadership of Adolf Hitler, the constitution of the Weimar Republic was never abolished, but merely suspended by the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State issued in February 1933. Which, under article 48 of the constitution suspended a raft of human rights, including the right of public assembly and of free association, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press as well as habeas corpus, and the succeeding Enabling Act 1933 that legally handed Hitler dictatorial powers. From a juridico-political point of view, therefore, the 12 years of the Nazi dictatorship were administered under a State of Exception (Elmer, 2020).

Whilst severe, the Nazi dictatorship 12 year State of Exception exemplar may show correspondence to contemporary procedures, even discounting the pandemic. COVID-19 simply uncovered something that had been entrenched long before. ent

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The so-called ‘War on Terror’ that followed the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001 ushered in what the US calls the ‘Security State’, lasting two decades. In France, the State of Emergency declared in November 2015 in reaction to terrorist attacks in Paris did not expire, after no less than five extensions, until November 2017, when it was replaced by a raft of suppressive measures embedded into ordinary law. Similarly to the response of the UK Government to the threat of COVID-19, this surveillance state, which is transnational and therefore transcends the nation state of our parliamentary politics, is built on the total surveillance and control of the population through cont the use of tracking, location and monitoring devices in our phones and other communication technologies, and implemented with new police powers to enforce so-called health and safety regulations that have had neither parliamentary scrutiny nor legislative approval (Elmer, 2020).

Some may say that this disparagement of the existing state of exception is severe and it is solitary for the benefit of the people against the virus.

STATE OF EXCEPTION – AGAMBEN – PANDEMIC

Although, what needs to be interrogated is for what length of time do we as the public accept defectively scheduled lockdowns being sprung out of the governments supposed strategies, business’ going in and out of phases of operation, and finally educational systems being frolicked with as if it is not the future of the next generation in the government’s hands?

Certain human rights lawyers have expressed their concern that the Emergency Powers handed to the police by both the Coronavirus Act 2020 and the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 interfere not only with our right to private and family life, but also our right to liberty along with restrictions on gatherings potentially posing a threat to our right to freedom of expression.

Even though the Memorandum to the Joint Committee on the Coronavirus Bill, dated 20 March, addressed these infringements of our rights, proposing that the police powers are necessary in order to protect public health, one explanation was missed.

Under Section 89 of the Bill, these police powers will be in existence for at least 2 years, with the option to extend them another 6 months, and to make “consequential modifications to them” (Elmer, 2020).

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One chambers briefing observed that “this effectively means there will be no parliamentary scrutiny of Regulations which on their face impose extraordinary and draconian restrictions on freedom of movement backed by increased powers of arrest and prosecution.

If this is a sign of things to come it does not bode well.” (Elmer, 2020).

Presently, our citizenship and the rights deriving from it have been reduced to the biological existence of our bare life. This is the bio-politics of what has quickly been dubbed and accepted as our ‘new normal’ (Elmer, (Elme 2020). Just as Roosevelt secured the New Deal, we are to “wage war against the emergency” (Roosevelt, 1938), through the persuasive and misleading terminology of the government. Consequently, it seems the dwelling is the only sacred space in which the forces of the exterior cannot intrude and interfere; if the smart devices (phones, tablets, etc.) are switched off, that is. In the time of the Coronavirus Bill, how are we expected to live? And in what such dwelling? A post ‘War on Terror’, present Pandemic era habitat proves challenging to envisage.

STATE OF EXCEPTION – AGAMBEN – PANDEMIC

“The state of exception therefore appears (alongside revolution and the de facto establishment of constitutional system) as an “illegal” but perfectly “juridical and perfec constitutional” measure that is realised in the production of new norms” (Agamben, 2005)

Concluding his New Reflections text in April 2020, Agamben leaves us with a sobering comprehension into the veracity of measures such as the negligible Track & Trace Application: “F “From many sides the hypothesis is now being formulated that in reality we are experiencing the end of a world, that of bourgeois democracies, founded on rights, parliaments and the division of powers, which is giving way to a new despotism; that, as regards the pervasiveness of controls and the cessation of all political activity, it will be worse than the totalitarianisms that we have known so far. American political scientists call it the Security State, which is a state in which “for security reasons” (in this case of “public health”), any limit can be imposed to individual freedoms.

And the control that is exercised through video cameras and now, as has been proposed, through mobile phones, far exceeds any form of control exercised under totalitarian regimes such as fascism or Nazism.”

(Agamben, 2020) Figure 6 Pandemic Art by Supriya Bohnsle

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THE INVENTION OF AN EPIDEMIC - A QUESTION – NEW REFLECTIONS

Figure 7 Acting within locality concept sketch exploring whether adaptation within existing apartments can facilitate internal garden spaces, aiding dwelling agriculture and in turn acting within our reach. Thus, becoming creative in our approach in working around the barriers of a pandemic and becoming co-creative with our neighbours.

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THE DWELLING

Figure 8 Dwelling Concept Model

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THE DWELLING

CHAPTER TWO SHIELDING CASE STUDIES

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CHAPTER TWO - SHIELDING CASE STUDIES

Figure 9 Port Sunlight Dwellings

Kitchen, Scullery & Parlour Small Yards, WC and Coalhouses Fireplaces

Figure 12 Parlour Cottage Ground Floor Plan, Port Sunlight

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PORT SUNLIGHT

Dwellings At the time of construction, there were two types of houses; the ‘Parlour’ cottage and the smaller ‘Kitchen’ cottage, the former had four bedrooms and downstairs a separate kitchen, scullery, parlour and small separate bathroom. The kitchen cottage had three bedrooms, and downstairs a living kitchen and a scullery from which a small bathroom was partitioned off.

Lever’s claim was that the number and sizes of rooms for the standard cottage had been determined co after experience of tenants’ reactions to the first types, and on purely rational grounds (Morton, 1973).

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PORT SUNLIGHT

Most rooms had fireplaces and the kitchen contained a large range with ventilators provided where there were no fireplaces.

To Lever, “interest” in architecture meant variety; the houses were built of a wide range of materials and a number of styles. At the back of the houses were small yards, containing the WC and coalhouse. The front gardens were originally grassed with low railings. In terms of the standard of accommodation it offered and the quality of its construction the Village was then a considerable achievement (Morton, 1973).

Services The locality of the village seems to be a fundamental consideration in its triumph, along with space and the occupants’ experience.

Proximity to jobs was a key aspect as workers were in close contact to the Sunlight Soap factory from their dwellings. Along with initiating approaches that were progressive, design decisions such as space between buildings, differentiation between dwellings and private grassed frontages seem to have been lost in the recent high rise ‘luxury’ apartment generation. Distinction and variety between building characteristics have been eradicated from what deems imperative.

In addition, it isn’t only the dwellings themselves that are prosperous shielding methodologies, it is the conveniences and environment in which surround them.

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PORT SUNLIGHT

Introducing participation in outdoor recreation directly modifies quality of life. Though self-contained, it appears warranted with the convenience and approachability of routine occupation along with its proximity to transport and cities pr such as Chester and Liverpool.

Port Sunlight Village responded to its state in a reactive way. It differs to its climate, with emphasis on quality of life and outdoor activities. Nevertheless, whilst competing its present state, it in turn assigns its future.

Improved sanitation, bathrooms Imp within dwellings and greater areas were all illustrations of things to come, with Port Sunlight evoking a vital precedent.

This response supplements that concluded of Agamben’s writings.

It enhances the idea of ‘local’; through becoming dedicated in contributing to social order within existing provincial conditions. Of course, Lever’s prospect was unordinary and pr bespoke, although its concept may not be so. The notion of reacting within current conditions, by manufacturing a transformation within locality, may only influence the outside, as was seen with Port Sunlight.

Sun

Figure 13 Port Sunlight Services Plan

Institute

Allotments (most green spaces)

Lady Lever Art Gallery Hospital

Schools Allotments (most green spaces)

Church Open Air Baths & Gymnasium Bridge Inn

Factory Gladstone Hall Theatre Offices

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PORT SUNLIGHT

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PORT SUNLIGHT

Figure 14 Port Sunlight Houses

Figure 15 Port Sunlight with Birkenhead and Liverpool 1939, Birdseye Sketch

BIRKENHEAD

LIVERPOOL

LIVERPOOL BIRKENHEAD

PORT SUNLIGHT river dee river mersey

ELLESMERE PORT

CHESTER

Connectivity Although self-contained, Port Sunlight thrived off its proximity to Liverpool, the docks and Chester. Possibly an insulated community works best with close relatives to support it. The nearness to New Chester Road and similarly the railway station, permits convenient transport opportunities.

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PORT SUNLIGHT

Figure 16 Port Sunlight proximity to surrounding cities

State Response & Influence In concluding the first case study, inspiration upon the post COVID-19 dwelling concept is essential. What Port Sunlight Village excelled on was upholding an independent village within a reasonably populated region by encouraging a superiority in life quality. Perhaps the dwelling concept should include certain design features from the Village in which develop locality and become leading future attributes that enhance our modern quality of life within pandemic situations.

Examples of this may include high tech ventilators that don’t make dwellings cold, but rather to eliminate air containing viruses or potential moving walls to enhance flexibility, however, as Morton states, Port Sunlight seems to authorise the need for a healthy scepticism towards simple solutions (Morton, 1973).

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PORT SUNLIGHT

Feasibly it might be the access to gardens and open space that is crucial. It could be connectivity, and the ease of pedestrian experience. Presently, pedestrian involvement is left secondary to significantly rowdy main roads, with mixed levels of pavements wi excluding gradient kerbs only enhancing this prejudice. The simplicity of accessible open green space should, even if not directly reachable from each dwelling through green balconies – become commanding in each design. Port Sunlight, despite exemplifying a bespoke and ornate aesthetic, displays concepts which are simple; dwellings that are above satisfactory whilst combining open air exercise with wi usefulness:

“What better way for a man to spend his time than in growing his own food, thus acquiring an appreciation of nature, obtaining physical exercise and experiencing the joy of creation?”

(Morton, 1973: 321-322)

Figure 17 Grayson & Ould, Church Drive, Port Sunlight

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PORT SUNLIGHT

Figure 18 Woven City Model

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WOVEN CITY

Dwellings All homes will be equipped with the latest in human support technologies, from sensor-based artificial intelligence that monitors people’s health, to taking care of basic needs and enhancing daily life. The Woven City project is seen as an opportunity to deploy connected technology with integrity and security (Toyota UK, 2021).

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WOVEN CITY

Figure 19 Woven City House

Figure 20 Woven City Grid Main Square - By distorting the grid, the central courtyard is enlarged to create a large plaza or park that can function as a city-wide public space.

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WOVEN CITY

Services An important aspect of the City’s design is its community spaces.

Neighbourhoods will feature natural, open spaces for recreation, while the large central park and plaza are designed to encourage the community to get together for social gatherings.

Toyota believes that human connection will be an important aspect of life in Woven City (Toyota UK, 2021). Particular population of these spaces is key to their success and popularity, as is found previously popularit in Port Sunlight.

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WOVEN CITY

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WOVEN CITY

Figure 21 Woven City Aerial View

Connectivity The city master plan includes three street types to accommodate various mobility needs. Fastmoving traffic will be limited to one type, slower moving traffic and pedestrians will use another, and park-like promenades will be dedicated to pedestrians. All three street types will weave together in a picturesque organic grid pattern (Toyota UK, 2021).

This answers the previous concerns on pedestrian involvement. The alternative slower mobility route must succeed through aesthetic value, activity, safety and appropriate lighting otherwise this organic pattern may become that of a pa forgotten one. Port Sunlight’s success in pedestrian involvement is through the attachment of the vehicular routes, but with wide pavement widths and in close succession of green space; questioning whether the separation ques is justified, with the improvement in pavement design maybe the only alteration needed.

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WOVEN CITY

Inhabitants will be transported by zero-emissions, driverless vehicles and deliveries made by Toyota’s e-pallet autonomous vehicle, originally designed for the Tokyo Olympics. An interesting twist is that the e-pallet could also be used to transport retailers.

Instead of visiting the bakery or bike shop, they will come to you.

Smart watches will be able to upload the vital signs of the citizens to a central medical diagnostic cloud. Approaching medical problems could be me monitored via Artificial Intelligence and diagnosis could be done in the background without formal trips to doctors (Holloway, 2020).

When relating to post COVID-19 dwellings, the transportation of retailers assumes a perfect response, along with monitored artificial intelligence doctors.

Non-contact and immediate with less travel involved. Yet, this is without regard to physical and mental health through contact with others and the outside world. What is the necessity for the bike shop to come to you if you have no reason to go out on the bike? Perhaps this self-containment could in turn se become negative. What is included in this city that justifies its isolation?

“Other people may complicate our lives, but life without them would be unbearably desolate. None of us can be truly human in isolation.

The qualities that make us human emerge only in the ways we relate to other people.”

(Kushner, 2002: 53)

Figure 22 Woven City Mobility Types - Today’s typical streets are simultaneously shared by vehicular, pedestrian and other mobility types. The road space is mostly dedicated to car traffic and parking lanes, while pedestrians occupy a minor portion of the street section. The Woven City treats each mobility type equally, creating three separated and different streets.

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WOVEN CITY

Figure 23 Woven City Visual

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WOVEN CITY

State Response & Influence Relative to Port Sunlight, Woven City responds in a reactive way to its state. It uses its secluding footprint to cast a stark juxtaposition to high rise cities, although claiming to be a city itself. With the emphasis on technological advancements to enhance daily life in and outside, it seems to be trying to validate this self-contained prototype in a rather utopian way. It differs to Port Sunlight as it clearly stresses not reacting within current conditions and consequently cur generating new ones instead.

Is this what the post COVID-19 dwelling concept may surprisingly need?

The technology proposed in Woven City seems to be inevitable for the future in any area, so, what are the actual proposals that are reactive? Low-rise timber houses, fuelled through hydrogen fuel cell, along with neighbourhood parks and separate pedestrianised routes. Again, these concepts are essentially elementary. Masked by high-tech ‘life-changers’, Woven City becomes an interesting case study of simplicity within design and of historical influence; succeeding to a mountain for habitation. However, does this rationalise this fully connected ecosystem its seclusion? Perhaps populating and encouraging the neighbourhood parks would be an improved imp justification.

In concluding the Woven City study, it is intriguing to think what it could influence within the dwelling concept. Of course, any futuristic dwelling design of today becomes rich in technology that barely requires one to move to the front door, so what design features within the City and therefore its dwellings, could prove useful?

Even though in Port Sunlight emphasis is given on separation between dwellings, it might not be obligatory. As is shown in Woven City, if the dwellings themselves are low-rise and give decent views, stimulating streets and an accent on neighbourhood connectivity, it may demonstrate fruitful living.

Toyota e-Pallette vehicles allow ease in deliveries whilst giving more time for human connection and exercise. Potential unloading docks could appear as a design feature in the dwelling concept, to enable smooth delivery. Sensor based artificial intelligence monitors could weave itself within wall build-ups and ceilings, whilst becoming an integrated technology like lighting rather than an external accessory.

However, with E-Pallette shuttles used as delivery vehicles and mobile retail and service delivery platforms in the city, and with complete exclusion of individually owned vehicles, it may prove that very little people actually move around and therefore the waste of designated pedestrianised streets alike what is found in Songdo, discussed previously (Lancot, 2020).

Accordingly, this case study appears detached from current realities, especially COVID-19, with no evolutionary path to adoption, with the exlusion of existing mass people movement solutions particularly glaring (Lancot, 2020). A careful, particularly specified influence must therefore be appropriate, for the post COVID-19 dwelling concept.

“Building a complete city from the ground up, even on a small scale like this, is a unique opportunity to develop future technologies including a digital inclu operating system for the city’s infrastructure,” (Toyoda, 2020)

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WOVEN CITY

Figure 24 Woven City

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AN ENCOURAGING SHIELDING METHODOLOGY?

Figure 25 Uxcester Garden City by U

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CHAPTER THREE - HERD IMMUNITY CASE STUDIES

Urbed

CHAPTER THREE HERD IMMUNITY CASE STUDIES

Figure 27 Visualising Herd Immunity - If enough people have immunity, the virus is less likely to spread because the few who aren’t immune are less likely to come in contact with someone who is infected

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HERD IMMUNITY

Figure 28 Uxcester Garden City

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UXCESTER GARDEN CITY

Dwellings The Garden City proposes a housebuilding process in which the Garden City creates a masterplan with serviced plots (‘trellis’). The plots will then be sold either individually or in small parcels to self-builders, custom-builders and small-scale builders. In this a process of incremental development is created on which the ‘vine’ of the neighbourhood can grow onto its trellis (Urbed, 2014).

Disparate to both previous case studies, the jurisdiction of dwelling design is down to the inhabitants. This proposes a completely novel strategy for the dwelling concept. Supposedly, by handing down this authority, the neighbourhood becomes a true reflection of its people.

Those that have lived through the pandemic would have first-hand familiarity of design aspects that demonstrated efficacious and those that need to be eradicated era or altered.

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UXCESTER GARDEN CITY

Differentiation between dwellings would become evident with the impression of duplicate blocks out of the question. Yet, there is the dispute of inequality. Those able to afford custom-builders are at advantage whilst those who are in need of social housing are left with no choice on the scheme in which they will live.

The majority will be built to suburban densities. 20% of the homes will be developed as detached units on the periphery of the neighbourhoods while 10% will be built to much higher densities in the central neighbourhood consisting of terraces and some apartments.

Within this mix there will be a diversity of house types, including family accommodation but also older people’s accommodation, smaller unites, rental property and social housing (Urbed, 2014).

Figure 29 Uxcester Garden City Plot Plan

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UXCESTER GARDEN CITY

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UXCESTER GARDEN CITY

Services The Garden City will be built and managed through a process of local cooperation and collaboration. This could range from custom-build and self-build housing, to community energy schemes, to allotments and sports clubs and community facilities. Neighbourhood management will be delegated to local people. These are central to the economic model for the city but also designed to fast-forward the process of building the social capital that creates the best places to live (Urbed, 2014).

Equally to both Port Sunlight and Woven City, the Garden City’s principles are enhancing locality, although it maintains its intimate association with its supplementary neighbourhoods and the city centre. What is problematic is the reality of construction and management imposed by only local people.

If this is to be an enforcement, is the selection of those living there founded on their vocations?

The fear is that such plots are sold in bulk to developers; ignorant and dispassionate in the proposal’s core concepts.

Perhaps locality as an implementation becomes merely a romanticisation.

Figure 30 Uxcester Garden City Services

Each neighbourhood would be served by a secondary school and three feeder primary schools as well as local services, while higher order facilities would be located in the central neighbourhoods (Urbed, 2014).

The notion is that the new public open space would be acquired by the Garden City promotor and would be developed as a rich resource for the whole of the city. It would include ecologically rich woodland planting, sports facilities, country plan parks and market gardens. It could also include lakes for flood attenuation (Urbed, 2014).

Rather than the green public space being an asset to the neighbourhood, its emphasis on the neighbourhood sitting within it highlights its prominence within the scheme.

The services provided such as the market gardens correspond to the concept of combining open air exercise with usefulness found in Lever’s vision for Port Sunlight.

Connectivity The neighbourhoods are designed to be served by a tram (or Bus Rapid Transport). The distances mean that the tram can link efficiently to each extension as it is developed, stopping at the heart of each of the sub-neighbourhoods. It also means that none of these stops are more than a 20 minute tram ride from the city centre. The neighbourhoods are 800m in diameter (10 minutes walk), with the higher density housing being within 400m (5 minutes walk) of wi these stops. At the same time in the other direction no home is more than 10 minutes walk from the swathe of public space that surrounds the neighbourhoods which will also include walking and cycling routes. The wa aim is to make walking, cycling and public transport the most convenient and economic ways of getting around (Urbed, 2014).

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UXCESTER GARDEN CITY

This locality is reminiscent of Woven City, with no genuine stress on external travel. The ease of efficient travel is an advantage, along with endorsing walking and cycling routes which in turn benefits the quality of life of the residents. This setting is justified by the activities proposed, however, alike the Woven City, how long is it before people want to leave? Especially in a post-pandemic era of lockdown after lockdown. Also, what is the credibility of trams within sub-neighbourhoods?

Currently trams serve city centres due to congestion and the outer residential circles of cities such as Manchester are left reliant on buses or cars.

Figure 31 Uxcester Garden City Trellis Plan

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UXCESTER GARDEN CITY

Figure 32 Uxcester Garden City Snowflake plan, showing the form of three major urban extensions that will make Uxcester into a Garden CIty

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UXCESTER GARDEN CITY

State Response & Influence Uxcester Garden City reacts to its state in a proactive way. It takes on its state and acclimatises through augmenting the open accessible space as its core footing with everything else merely reliant subjects within.

Its locality also adds to this, by means of low carbon footprints with emphasis on public transport, walking and cycling. Ecologically rich woodland planting, sports facilities, country parks and market gardens all reiterate this idea of neighbourhood proximity.

Although, Uxcester Garden City competes with its state conjointly, as offering this idealistic neighbourhood scheme confronts the housing issue at hand at the time. By implementing plots pu purely for custom-build or self-build the concept challenges developers that impose identical and monotonous housing estates and propositions a more personal and provocative methodology.

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UXCESTER GARDEN CITY

When considering the post COVID-19 dwelling concept, what is utmost intriguing in conjunction with the Garden City is the self-build conception.

Are we to allow inhabitants to compose their own dwellings, which in turn become flexible enough so that when a new occupant emerges that they are able to be redesigned anew?

What sort of philosophy of design and materiality would be most applicable and would these be pionee pioneered as futuristic and visionary? In addition, are extensive and connected neighbourhoods something the prototype climate must take on? Are we to preserve our correspondence to others or are we to isolate completely?

Figure 34 Mobility Opportunities

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UAM CITY INTEGRATION

Dwellings What impact would this have on dwellings? With the Airbus Vahana model being an all-electric, single seat, vehicle demonstrator that focuses on advancing self-piloted, electrical vertical take-off and landing flight, and only being 5.6m long, 7.3m wide and 2.8m high, with a range of 50km, the use of ground floor is unnecessary (Airbus, 2021).

UAM gives locality a whole different connotation. Living in a high rise does not now necessarily mean ‘urban’ in the context of density and congestion.

Being within an apartment now can mean ‘local’, with the ability to leave without getting into an elevator, but onto your balcony.

Having the ability to leave to work, school, shops or leisure, UAM makes this journey simply ‘down the road’. As with the Woven City, even leaving the apartment itself may become unwarranted, and if so, is this a positive thing? Integration of such technology must be introduced with a certain care, as a Songdo Smart City Scenario is a stark reality of the negativities of such concepts.

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UAM CITY INTEGRATION

Services Airbus’ research also considered the principles of transit-oriented development, not only by bringing airborne transport links, but also by integrating with other multimodal transport options to serve local surroundings and solve the problem of the ‘last mile’. In locations that are underdeveloped, vertiports can be designed as opportunity hubs with educational and healthcare facilities, or business incubators, for example, while in areas fractured by infrastructure such fractu as roads or railway tracks, a vertiport can serve as a bridge connecting neighbourhoods (Aasarchitecture, 2020).

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UAM CITY INTEGRATION

Similarly to Uxcester Garden City, UAM offers the linking of areas, in which is interesting to consider post COVID-19. Will we truly want neighbourhoods to become denser? Or will it be that the advancement of UAM only make us frequently distant?

Figure 35 UAM Vertiports Visual

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UAM CITY INTEGRATION

Figure

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UAM CITY INTEGRATION

36 Connectivity Opportunities

Connectivity The key to unlocking this potential lies largely in vertiports, landing hubs that integrate the aerial network with the existing and future ground transportation system. The research findings envisaged vertiports of various types and sizes, just like traditional transport stops, stations, and terminals. However, unlike stations for other urban transport options such as trains, metros, or buses, the network does not require any linear infrastructure in between (Aasarchitecture, 2020).

(Aasa No tracks, tunnels or roads are required, saving energy, natural resources, and land. This allows designers to adapt the vertiports to a variety of different locations, plugging into and enhancing existing urban scenarios with a number of different configurations (Aasarchitecture, 2020).

The vertiports have been designed as catalysts for urban improvement by addressing the question of resources and impact as a foundational step in their integration process. Vertiports are thought of not just as stations, but also as hubs of renewable energy, data, and public amenities, that can scale while remaining sustainable and resilient (Aasarchitecture, 2020).

Inconsistent with all previous case studies, the need for direct substructure is eliminated in this conception, creating an extreme flexibility within transport. As was discussed in Agamben’s concept, how is a government to take control over a nation through a state of exception whilst UAM gives the absolute opportunity of freedom? Whilst living through multiple lockdowns, the ambition and prospect of UAM seems mesmerising, whether realistic or merely a concept.

State Response & Influence Urban Air Mobility City Integration seems to sit on the fence when analysing its approach.

It implicates the proactive method through connectivity between neighbourhoods, whilst suggesting a reactive methodology through presenting an advanced locality, pr even within dense areas with the opportunity of UAM. It insinuates a combined attitude, by initiating a whole new way of life. Its reaction to its state is similar to that of Woven City’s renewed tactic, although it is combined tac within existing networks.

UAM City Integration is probably the most pertinent in taking inspiration for the post-pandemic dwelling concept due to its time frame. Despite the fact that UAM is not a dwelling climate concept, its effect on design decisions, if successful, will modify inhabitation incessantly, either positively or negatively.

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UAM CITY INTEGRATION

What the dwelling concept frameworks may need is incorporation of this concept rather than influence, if successful.

Designing dwellings post COVID-19, whether low-rise or apartments may need to encompass UAM landing points, or rather ‘home vertiports’ in which eradicate the use of the traditional garage or parking area on ground level. Alike in the Woven City, where Toyota e-Pallete vehicles need unloading docks, mobility technologies such the Vahana model will need landing areas.

Designing around such technologies could be testing. How is the integration of futuristic technologies incorporated successfully within a dwelling prototype? If flexibility is essential outside the dwelling, it must be epitomised within also.

“a city where my mobility is at my balcony!”

(Maas, 2020) Howeve these integrations However, within dwelling design is based on the notion that UAM proves successful. As approached earlier, this complete freedom and flexibility within travel that UAM wants to advertise may in reality, prove the complete opposite. pr Songdo, South Korea is a definite example of a failed ‘Smart City’ with empty streets and a low population. If the dwelling concept is to take influence from such case studies, it must be with caution, and the knowledge wi that these concepts are susceptible to fail. Nevertheless, if the dwelling concept is to follow the conclusions of Agamben’s writings and is to embrace such failures and ambiguity, design features within ambiguit the scheme will have the ability to embrace these occurrences and therefore become an example of positivity in the face of such adversity.

Figure 37 Understanding diversity on UAM implementation

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UAM CITY INTEGRATION

Figure 38 UAM Vertipoint Possibility

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AN ENCOURAGING HERD IMMUNITY METHODOLOGY?

CHAPTER FOUR STUDY CONCLUSIONS

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CHAPTER FOUR - STUDY CONCLUSIONS

Figure 39 Building Blocks

Uxcester Garden City augments the idea of accessible green space making it its core footing with everything else merely reliant subjects within. Along with enhancing locality inside, the supplementary neighbourhoods similarly idealise connectivity elsewhere. Something in which the post COVID-19 dwelling concept must encompass. What this study has disclosed is how shielding has the ability to be a popular short-term romanticised attitude, however the veracity of designing for inhabitants that have endured multiple lockdowns demonstrates contrarily. Additionally, the Garden City implements custom-build dwellings, allowing residents to compose their own.

This notion will be explored within the post pandemic concept, with scenario-based investigations to investigate the flexibility of the dwelling concepts.

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Along with the Garden City, Urban Air Mobility Integration aids a proactive approach, with acute connectivity and initiating a whole new way of life. Alike the Woven City, it uses a renewal tactic although combined within existing networks. However, this exis start-again tactic averts ground issues and in turn could disregard them. What is indispensable for the dwelling concept is designed landing points for such vehicles if prominent, but verifying that its integration does not disregard wider existent issues.

DEFINING INITIAL DESIGN FRAMEWORKS THROUGH DATA

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DEFINING INITIAL DESIGN FRAMEWORKS THROUGH DATA

Figure 40 Spatial opportunities for urban development through Urban Air Mobility Integration

The post pandemic dwelling concept must commit to tackling drivers such as intensive farming in reducing climate change and diseases. Along with examples of market gardens, the emphasis on locality within farming and trade must be entrenched within the framework. International travel issues, post COVID-19 will prove arduous, although designing neighbourhoods in which have improved services, connectivity and dwellings may aid in tackling this matter.

Both COVID-19 and the climate crisis have exposed the face that the poorest and most marginalised people in society, such as migrants and refugee populations, are always the most vulnerable to shocks. With regard to climate change, those most impacted by extremes have usually contributed the least to the root causes of the crisis. This year’s Countdown report finds that no country is immune to avoidable loss of lives arising from widening inequalities, with every indicator inequa in the report following a worsening trend (The Lancet, 2021).

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What the new dwelling concept must be is affordable and social housing. Poor should not mean inaccessibility to green space, food security or clean air. Simple design decisions will allow this with these factors incorporated as the footing for the designs, similarly to the Uxcester Garden City.

Climate has slipped from the top of the global agenda because of political indifference and the need to deal with the immediacies of COVID-19. Five years on from the Paris Agreement, seizing the opportunity to refocus interest on sustainability offer the co-benefits of protecting our future health, the environment, and our planetary systems. As governments embark on economic recovery plans in the wake of COVID-19, concerns of climate change and equity are rightly focused on a green recovery. A global rapid transition to clean energy sources is needed, ending the stranglehold of fossil fuels.

Decisions being made now must tackle both crises together to ensure the most effective responses ensu to each (The Lancet, 2021).

DEFINING INITIAL DESIGN FRAMEWORKS THROUGH THE CURRENT CLIMATE

Figure 41 Potential neighbourhood interaction zone sketch

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DEFINING INITIAL DESIGN FRAMEWORKS THROUGH THE CURRENT CLIMATE

Focus

The cities everyone wants to live in should be clean and safe, possess efficient public services, be supported by a dynamic economy, provide cultural stimulation, and also do their best to heal society’s divisions of race, class and ethnicity. These are not the cities we live in. Cities fail on all these counts due to government policy, irreparable social ills, and economic forces beyond local control. In these ways, each city is not its own master (Sennett (Senne & Sendra, 2020).

In a post pandemic scenario, rather than fixating over an entire control and instead directing a more localised jurisdiction must be the way forward. Incorporating sources in which we have readily available to us in order to build upon a brighter community based living must be a basic foundation in delivering a civic entity in which can last the flexibilities of future states.

Today’s planner has an arsenal of technological tools – from lighting to bridging and tunnelling to materials for buildings – which urbanists even a hundred years ago could not begin to imagine: we have more resources to use than in the past, but we don’t use these resources very creatively (Sennett & Sendra, 2020).

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Creativity must take lead, with dwelling scenarios becoming invigorating places to live stimulating flexibility, useable green spaces, community based activity and pedestrianised emphasis.

The overdetermination of both the city’s visual forms and its social functions seems to be the issue within today’s current cities.

The technologies which make possible experimentation have been subordinated to a regime of power which wants order and control; the grip of rigid images and precise delineations, the urban imagination loses its vitality.

Now, with even greater technical abilities, we need to loosen up the city, we need to imagine an open city in which experimentation is possible, one which is friendly to informality, one which is open (Sennett & Sendra, 2020).

This is only too familiar to the government’s so-called regime of power over the coronavirus pandemic - fanatical with order and control. Untying within rigid and pretentious attitudes in association with dwellings is critical, the flexibility within cri successful technologies of the future must be prevalent within each plan.

Fur Furthermore, the bonds of community cannot be conjured in an instant, with a stroke of the planner’s pen; they require time to develop. Today’s ways of building cities – segregating functions, homogenising population, pre-empting through popula zoning and regulating the meaning of place – fail to provide communities the time and space to evolve, which is needed for growth (Sennett & Sendra, 2020).

Modification, embracing the unknown, flexibility, locality, originality and connectivity within existing conditions and simplistic solutions establishes an improved evolution, regardless of what may result from the pandemic.

By investigating unrestricted experimentation within design concepts, a more rigid concept may occur, although only rigid within its construction – with flexibility as its true motivation.

DEFINING INITIAL DESIGN FRAMEWORKS THROUGH THE CURRENT CLIMATE

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CHAPTER FIVE - CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

CHAPTER FIVE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

Figure 42 Dwelling Concept Model

Figure 43 The 20 principles of the Home of 2030, ranked by importance. Polling data from Savanta ComRes, England-wide.

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DWELLING CONCEPT FRAMEWORKS

Figure 44 ‘One-bed-plus’ designed by Levitt Bernstein.

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DWELLING CONCEPT FRAMEWORKS

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DWELLING CONCEPT FRAMEWORKS

Figure 45 House Concept Street View by author

Dwelling Scenario Concepts In designing the concept’s frameworks, the scenarios should be, in the government’s words, building back better. The key to this is shifting from an industry that focuses on discharging transactional obligations, to one that sets out to deliver high-performing buildings in a reliable and predictable way (Park, 2021).

Our immediate priority is to understand how to achieve net-zero-carbon homes and encourage clients to be early adopters. We need to avoid wilful decisions that compromise environmental performance; complicated sections, cantilevers comp and large, unshaded windows all make zero carbon more difficult to achieve. Good design matters more than ever, but ‘good’ must evolve (Park, 2021). Straightforwardness is deemed key once again, in building design along with concepts. Retracting to modest necessities like green space and community seem our saving grace within crisis.

COVID-19 and climate change have exposed the fragility of a world we have taken for granted for far too long. We can’t always get it right, but we can ensure that we always act in good faith and have the necessary knowledge and skills to do our job well (Park, 2021). Thus, only reiterating the conclusions from Agamben’s writings – we must embrace ambiguity with failure not necessarily becoming a negative, but a potential aspect that requires re-thinking.

Two scenario based concepts will explore this re-thinking with flexibility, modification, green communities being their foundation. As with the case studies, each scenario will introduce the dwellings, the services and their connectivity.

They aim to be initial conceptual explorations based on the outcomes of the philosophy, case studies and current state investigations examined within this dissertation. Each scenario is simply a suggestion of potential progressions from our current state into an improved dwelling setting of which can be interpretated in future designs.

APARTMENT MODEL FLEXIBILITY Through 3D printed models, it is recognisable that the apartment concept is able to accommodate students, couples, single people and small families with the option of extending the apartments if necessary through the moveable partition walls.

The possibilities of open plan spaces along with more secluded areas such as home offices can be established. The models interrogate the use of light within the spaces, dependant on how they have been personally arranged according to the occupants’ needs, along with how light is handled within an extended apartment.

SEPARATE APARTMENT

KITCHEN / DINER BEDROOM

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APARTMENT MODEL

OPEN FAMILY APA

PLAN PARTMENT

SEPARATE APARTMENT

KITCHEN HOME OFFICE BEDROOM Figure 47 Apartment Flexibility Model

HOUSE MODEL FLEXIBILITY As with the apartment model, through the aid of 3D printing, modelling the concepts physically allows study into their flexibility with moveable partition walls and light explorations.

With the house concept, it is able to accommodate small families, couples or single people with the option of open plan areas, more secluded areas such as home offices and the ability for further privacy within bedrooms and living rooms.

OPEN PLAN TWO BEDROOMS

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HOUSE MODEL

HOME LIVING KITC

OFFICE G ROOM CHEN

LIVING ROOM KITCHEN Figure 50 House Flexibility Model

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DWELLING CONCEPT FEASIBLITY

Figure 52 Apartment Concept Visual

Feasibility When contriving whether the concepts would be feasible as new builds or incorporated within existing schemes, the initial concern is that presently, we are still in the COVID-19 pandemic, and consequently fo forecasting for the outcomes post-pandemic is problematic.

Through the case studies, we see that each one reacts to their present state, and within designing the dwelling concepts, we are merely designing for a predicted future. As does Agamben in his reflections, we are basing this future on what we are currently experiencing, and alike each day in a pandemic, the next is uncertain. Thus, we must simply base these concepts on what has been discovered and therefore manufactured from this study, and not introduce the concepts as a fixed way forward, once free of COVID-19, if ever. In other words, they should be seen as recommendations rather than set in stone resolutions. As with the Woven City, it is a prototype, and unlike the Woven City, the concepts will be tested once out of the current pandemic climate, in order to reach a completely appropriate reaction. Toyota’s proposed City only goes to show how a design can age and become significantly inapp inappropriate, even before the foundations set. The dwelling concepts must become embodiments of their ambiguous state and therefore welcome alterations and criticisms.