The Role of Architecture and Urbanism in Preventing Pandemics

Abstract

This chapter aims to assess the historical role of architecture and urbanism in the prevention and mitigation of pandemics and the place it may occupy in future international strategies. During COVID-19, the contemporary healthcare system response to pandemics showed its limits. There must be investigated a more interdisciplinary answer in which the role of the built environment in the One Health should be clarified. Since the 19th century, the built environment traditionally occupied a decisive role in mitigating pandemics. The war against tuberculosis led to the Hygiene movement which set the principles of the Modernist architectural and urban movement. With the discovery of antibiotics, the medicine emancipated from architecture. In the absence of health implications, the social and environmental counterreactions to the Modernist movement led to the Green Architecture, New Urbanism or Urban Village movements. After the last decades warnings about future pandemics, some of the present COVID-19 scientific findings have notable impact on the built environment design: pollution, green areas, urban population density or air quality control. Finally, the chapter analyses architectural and urban measures for preventing and mitigating future pandemics: air control, residential approaches, public spaces, green areas design, working, transportation and mixed neighborhoods.