Abstract:
The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill, affecting
every aspect of human life. The impact can be felt more vehemently in cities,
where economic activities have slowed down and people are forced to be
confined within the four walls of their homes because of prolonged lockdown.
The urban open spaces are naturally being underused as they are perceived
to be potential hotspots for the outbreak, while the need for open spaces
within the houses and the buildings are immensely felt. To cope with this
need, people seem to be using the available open spaces within their houses
and their buildings like verandahs, roofs, parking spaces etc. In a highly dense
and heavily built up city like Dhaka, where open spaces in both house and
community scale is already scarce, it is imperative to see how people are
fulfilling their needs for open spaces during this pandemic. Dhaka having both
planned and organically grown residential neighbourhoods, provides a
chance to study whether these two are coping with the pandemic situation
similarly or differently. The objective of this paper is to explore the use and
the modification of open spaces within the housing units and the buildings
during the pandemic. This paper focuses on how the need for the use of open
spaces has changed and how people are fulfilling their space-based
interactions. To develop a comprehensive understanding, this paper focuses
on both formal and organically grown neighbourhoods of Dhaka city. Due to
the potential risk inherent in physical survey, primary data was collected
through online questionnaires and semi structured interviews.
