#LOCKDOWN #WEBINARS
Covid and resulting Lockdown brought with it streaming of Zoom meetings and Webinars. The positive side of this was
Work from home
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No Transport
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No Pollution
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No overhead costs
World suddenly became small and distances shortened. Webinars saw professionals from all over the world exchanging ideas about Post Pandemic Normal. This covered every imaginable topic from Sustainability to Buildings to Net Zero to Economics to Cities.
Here we have summarized the outcomes of some popular webinars, organized by Assocham in association with Smart Habitat Foundation and a webinar series on Building Inclusive Cities by ElsaMarie DSilva , Red Dot Foundation & Prathima Manohar , The Urban Vision.
Sustainable New Urbanism
- To make our cities equally accessible and to solve the struggle of competition and equity, government needs to invest in the Social Sector.
- Emphasis should be made on capacities of Urban Resilience built on people centric and holistic approach and then adapting and transforming them towards sustainable development goals.
- We need to rethink how cities function and make them integral part of Policy Making, not mere service delivery agents.
- There is a need to link the planning process to the ecological footprints.
- Covid has led to a collective reckoning, and technology will be a key factor in shaping the resultant new paradigms.
- Changes in land use and urban planning of the cities are imperative – Mixed-use developments will sprout up to decrease the distances and the travel time between places
- Unemployment or reverse exodus will lead to much more development in the B- cities
Post Pandemic Architecture- Smart & Sustainable
- Services play an important role in the building function and in future many aspects of automation will have to be explored for a virus-proof environment.
- Adaptive reuse is becoming the new norm as many buildings are facing a crisis. Many hotels are planning to convert some percentage of rooms into office spaces to ensure occupancy rates. The multiplicity of the uses is the need of the hour
- Malls may have to reinvent themselves into warehouse/display spaces because of lack of footfall because of increase in online shopping
- Office spaces will have to move towards a touch-free environment through automation
- The buildings will have to re-think about new technologies to cool the building and a major focus being on the evaporative air cooling systems.
- Insulation of the building envelope-Thicker walls and under-deck insulation in the roofs will become mandatory to bring down the heat load.