Many people in the Western world feel confused about wearing a mask in public to protect themselves and others from coronavirus. In a civic sense, identification is paramount and connects individuals, their exterior appearance and their actions. In Asia, however, people are used to wearing masks. A matter of courtesy or culture? Urbanist Mark Kammerbauer reflects on the connection between an open society, openly accessible public spaces, the way human beings communicate with each other and being open-minded towards wearing a mask in public.
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At this moment of crisis, one important question that concerns people across the globe is whether wearing medical face masks in public will become mandatory. The US is considering this measure to curb the distribution of Covid-19 since the awareness of how the virus can be spread seems to have sunk in. In Europe as well voices are becoming louder that call for wearing masks in public. This is relevant for two different reasons. For one, wearing a mask is not singularly intended to protect the wearer from surrounding people, but the opposite: to protect people around you in case you have been infected, thus preventing you from infecting others. Further, there seems to be a higher propensity towards wearing medical or similar face masks in public in Asia, perhaps so even before the Corona crisis occurred.
A matter of courtesy or culture? Let’s take a look at the situation in Asia. The custom of wearing medical face masks in public can possibly be retraced to various sources – the occurrence of other respiratory diseases and related public health emergencies in the past, the tradition of Cosplay where wearers refer to the idolized figures of Anime and Manga culture (such as Tokyo Ghoul or others), or the way urban space articulates itself in socio-cultural terms. Particularly the latter requires stepping back and considering what, if any, connection there is between the way buildings are articulated within the physical realm we understand as public space and if, in any case, this relates to the way people present themselves in that public space.
Semiotic elements of building facades communicate information to their human observers
It’s more or less a truism when we say that the facades of buildings are their “face”, as is the notion that buildings communicate something to those who look at them. By accepting that notion we have arrived within a postmodernist understanding of the city, its semiotic character, and the information that is communicated in the process. We do know, in the case of the historic European city, that extraverted building facades facing a shared, common, urban public space actually do communicate something to the people who pass by – think of the golden pretzels, shoes and piglets adorning the shops of related, individual trades. Such elements can only be observed in public if and because European cities feature openly accessible public spaces. From the perspective of urban studies, this also opens the possibility of comparing the way semiotic elements of building facades communicate information to their human observers with the way human beings communicate with one another. Following this notion, exposing one’s face in public is the precondition for recognizing the particular individual whose face we gaze upon. In a civic sense, identification is paramount and connects individuals, their exterior appearance and their actions as well as the fruit of their labor within what we call “practice”, or in simpler terms, “everyday life in the city.”
Asian cities: the concept of the closed neighborhood that is walled off towards the surrounding
However, this notion may not be simply applicable to each and every urban context, for instance those where the publicness of urban spaces takes on a different contextual character. When we look at cities in Asia and try to retrace their historic, socio-cultural origins, it helps to consult with experts in the field of the urban everyday life of Asian cities, or in particular, cities in China. Dieter Hassenpflug is such an expert, and his observations are clear. In the case of cities in China, we can identify introversion rather than extroversion, the concept of the closed neighborhood that is walled off towards the surrounding, and a nascent public space that has just recently been coded as such, emerging from what had been merely an open space without any civic intent comparable to historic European cities described above. This provides us with one possible explanation for why Asians might be more akin to wearing face masks in public – communication in public evolved under different spatial circumstances – whereas in those parts of the world informed by European and Anglo-Saxon socio-cultural modes of everyday life this might be hindered by reservations towards facial concealment.
Let’s not forget: the historic practice of walling off a city was not intended to protect the surrounding feudal hinterland from the city, but exactly the other way round. Perhaps we need other examples that are more suited to incentivize mask-wearing. Pop culture might be helpful, as indicated in the Asian case.
Masks produced by Bjarke Ingels Group: protection that allows recognition?
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Innovation in design also offers solutions. Just recently, a mask was developed to ensure that the deaf can still communicate while someone is wearing it. The transparent area in front of the wearer’s mouth ensures lip reading can still take place. Just as recent is the proposal by the renowned architects from Bjarke Ingels Group. “We have adapted an open sourced design by Erik Cederberg of 3DVerkstan for a simplified face shield to be optimized for high volume print production. Whereas his file was for a single element we’ve successfully updated this to a stacked version that is able to print 50 units within 24 hour cycle per printer”, states Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Partner, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Within one week, up to 5,000 masks can be produced in-house. Perhaps this is a solution to our global northern mask woes: protection that allows recognition.
Video Credits: Bjarke Ingels Group.
Collaborators: Dr. James Shin from Cornell University, Matthew Griffin from Ultimaker
Sponsors: Mara Hitner and Rhonda Grandy from MatterHackers
Team (BIG): Bernardo Schuhmacher, Carlos Castillo, Christian Salkeld
Coronavirus is spreading rapidly across the world. For humans, this means: standstill, pause, so that the spread is slowed down. The crisis is currently changing our lives to an extent that we have never experienced before. Emily Schlickman, assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental design at the University of California, Davis reports on how the lockdown and the stay-at-home-orders are having an impact on urban life in Davis, California. The Golden State is on pause.
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On March 17th seven million people were ordered to shelter-in-place in the state of California.
On March 18th that number tripled to 21 million.
On March 19th it became 40 million.
Today, every resident of California is required to stay at home indefinitely, as there is no official termination date for the order. Exceptions to the mandate include residents working in “critical infrastructure sectors”, as defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and residents embarking on “essential” errands like grocery shopping, caring for a loved one, or accessing healthcare. Residents can still go outside, but must stay at least six feet away from others.
Do we know how wide this hurricane really is?
This tactic, one of the strongest in the United States, is a last ditch effort to flatten the curve in a state where COVID-19 has been projected to potentially infect 56% of residents over the course of just eight weeks. Many have compared this anxious waiting period to the brace of an impending hurricane, but perhaps this analogy isn’t quite right. Do we know how wide this hurricane really is? Do we know its average wind speed? Do we know where the “eye” is? Or if an “eye” even exists? For the most part, this is an invisible storm and it has already made landfall, lurking in our communities far longer than we even know.
So what are the urban implications of this pandemic pause? Here, in Davis, California, a college town located between San Francisco and Sacramento, real-time data to help answer this question is hard to come by. But we do have a few clues.
Physically on pause
En route to a pharmacy a few days ago, I snapped some photos of the city as it was bracing for the unknown. The images that came from this exercise are only remarkable in what is missing from their frames: social life. The city had not only metaphorically and legally paused, it had paused physically. This is what I observed.
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Buses that typically carry over 50 passengers per hour, had only one or two riders. Downtown parking lots that are often at capacity, were more than 75% vacant. Bike counters were registering just 25% of a typical daily tally, bike racks were empty, and shared bikes had completely disappeared (I found out later that they had been pulled from the streets for fear of contributing to the spread). I saw just one Uber, which, after a quick check on my phone, was one of two car-share vehicles in the city. About 70% of the downtown businesses had closed their doors. The rest had turned over their furniture to deter people from lingering. In the pharmacy, many of the shelves were empty. All antibacterial soap, hand sanitizer and toilet paper were out of stock.
Davis, like many other communities across California, is unaware of what the next few days, weeks, or months might bring. In the meantime, we will remain on pause.
Seven months later … still on pause
The COVID-19 pandemic has spread rapidly across California. Experts say the true number of people infected is unknown and likely much higher than official tallies. Currently, the number of infected persons is 919,930, almost one million.
After a fitful start, California has increased coronavirus testing in the state. Over the last week, an average of 133,997 tests have been conducted each day. (Source: Los Angeles Times)
There is still no normal situation as before the pandemic in sight. The number of daily new infections is still very high. At the same time, pressure on the government is increasing due to the precarious economic situation of restaurants and cultural sites.
The Department of Public Health is working with the restaurant industry to develop health and safety guidelines for the reopening. California has established color-coded tiers for reopening. San Francisco is now in the red zone, the second most-restricted tier, indicating transmission of the virus is substantial. City officials said restaurants can reopen for indoor dining when cities move into the less-restrictive orange tier. (Source: Los Angeles Times)
In Moscow the territory around the Polytechnic Museum will be transformed into “Museum Park” – a well thought out public space, whose structure answers the needs of the Museum and its visitors, as well as intensive transport and pedestrian flows.
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How to turn the forecourt of a museum into a vibrant and busy place of urban life? Think of a place that competes on equal terms with parks, cinemas and restaurants. The new Museum Park (‘Muzeiny Park’) – based on a concept of the award winning Japanese architect Junya Ishigami – is a pedestrian zone and public space that will help to draw city dwellers into the Polytechnic Museum. The concept connects Metro exits, Museum building entrances, routes followed by both Polytechnic Museum visitors and regular pedestrians, transport flows and the logistical requirements of the Museum.
The new Museum Park
The idea itself is simple and groundbreaking at the same time: Ishigami’s proposal is based on activating the semi-subterranean basement level of the Museum by inclining the ground level around the building and planting the slopes and courtyard spaces with trees. As a result, a park would be formed both within and around the Museum, increasing the total area to 12 000 m².
An amphitheatre for urban life
In 2017 on this basis the architectural bureau Wowhause and therewith the development team directors Dmitry Likin and Oleg Shapiro will create a park-amphitheatre, an open-air foyer that will become an extension of the spaces inside the building, to which it will form a prologue. The concept aims to unite the new pedestrian zone in the building’s basement level with the outdoor area alongside Lubyanka Square, attracting pedestrians and providing them with a convenient and pleasant route into the Museum complex. During winter time the entire subterranean level will be covered with a roof and provided with heating to ensure that Museum Park will be used all year long frequently as a place that invites both museum visitors and strollers to stay.
