FORUM A+P 24 - Health and Wellbeing in the Post-Pandemic City

The 24th Issue of Forum A+P aims at exploring the relationship between the urban environment and the recent COVID-19 pandemic under different perspectives and approaches. Considering the breadth of the discourse on health and well-being for a post-Pandemic city, and an effort to understand the relevance of those issues to the design process through both a theoretical or practice-based approach, we could not exempt ourselves, also in regard to the reader, from framing our exploration from a precisely theoretical point of view and manifesting our critical position within this vast field of interest. It is not news any longer that during the year 2020-22, millions of people around the world had to quarantine, self-isolate, and apply physical and social distancing. Our lives, our family and work have drastically shifted into what many are increasingly calling the “new normal” 2. People work, study, shop and even get health advice remotely. Yet not everyone enjoys suitable spaces for conducting virtual lives. While much of the public attention has been given to medical experts and government guidelines; de facto, it is clear that the way we have designed and planned our homes and cities so far has been shaping how we were facing the pandemic at an individual and social level.