Adaptations to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Open Spaces in Residential Neighbourhoods of Dhaka, Bangladesh

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 spacebased 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.