The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the way in which the community interacts within public spaces. Consequently, the design of these urban environments requires new approaches. It is our view that Human Factors and Ergonomics approaches can be used to provide these insights. This article explores the opportunities for making public spaces safer and more accessible for community use under pandemic conditions. The study utilizes a sociotechnical systems model of an archetype public space, developed pre-COVID-19, to explore the infrastructure and activities that are impacted by the introduction of the virus to the public space system. The aim was to identify those elements of the system that are completely unavailable under pandemic conditions, those elements that become limited in use, and those which remained unaffected by the presence of the virus. The findings show that under pandemic conditions pre-COVID-19 public spaces were surprisingly resilient with proportionally few elements within the model completely unavailable. They also demonstrate that overall, the public spaces system, while still operating, is significantly constrained in achieving and optimizing community and individual health and well-being. The insertion of five (5) urban design interventions within the system model presented unique insights into the possibilities for optimizing adaptive capacity. These interventions revealed design opportunities across several levels of the systems model. Such insights are argued to assist in not only re-establishing community access under pandemic conditions but also more inclusive access to a broader range of the community under all conditions.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 下公共空间的适应能力：通过社会技术系统方法探索城市设计干预

2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 大流行对社区在公共空间内的互动方式产生了巨大影响。因此，这些城市环境的设计需要新的方法。我们认为可以使用人为因素和人体工程学方法来提供这些见解。本文探讨了在大流行情况下使公共空间更安全、更易于社区使用的机会。该研究利用在 COVID-19 之前开发的原型公共空间的社会技术系统模型来探索因将病毒引入公共空间系统而受到影响的基础设施和活动。目的是确定系统中那些在大流行情况下完全不可用的元素，那些在使用中变得受限的元素，以及那些不受病毒存在影响的人。研究结果表明，在大流行条件下，COVID-19 之前的公共空间具有惊人的弹性，模型中几乎没有完全不可用的元素。他们还表明，总体而言，公共空间系统虽然仍在运行，但在实现和优化社区和个人健康与福祉方面受到严重限制。在系统模型中插入五 (5) 项城市设计干预措施，为优化适应能力的可能性提供了独特的见解。这些干预措施揭示了系统模型多个级别的设计机会。