Cohabitation in a Time of Emergency: ‘During’ Versus ‘After’ the Confinement

Abstract

During the first confinement, imposed as a response to the health emergency, we lived on our albeit minimal balconies looking for sunlight, and we explored our buildings in search of community terraces or underused practicable roofs that gave us fresh air as well as a minimum of socialisation. Then, we wondered whether in the ‘after’, those spaces would have another (new) value. By extending the reflection to urban public spaces, we note that several cities belonging to ‘developed countries’ awake from the first confinement with the manifested intention of taking care of their inhabitants. Guided by the definitions of phases of collective human response to a major crisis, given by psychologists, we will analyse some expectations and actions until now implemented in cities. This paper is an invitation to broaden the collective imagination of urban public space, to continue to design it by using emergency periods as a testing ground.