Spatial scale plasticity of urban residential areas: Lessons from Shanghai’s model in response to COVID-19

Shanghai’s measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2022 have attracted world-wide attention. The response to public emergency and pandemic in built environment has prompted a profound reflection in residential planning. This case study investigated an under-developed site located in Shanghai’s Huangpu River waterfront. Based on a site survey, interviews, the phased lockdown policies of different urban areas, and published data on the spatial distribution of infection cases, this paper analyzes the effectiveness of strategies for coping with different stages of epidemic spread at different spatial scales. In addition to ensuring the privacy of living quarters, our residential planning ensures the flow and social communication of people in different neighborhoods, achieving the resilience of local lockdown and flow. This study redefines the openness and reasonable scale of residential areas based on analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of gated and block residential areas facing pandemic. This paper analyzes the feasibility of a residential site plan based on the above conception, which has spatial scale composable features for the basic residential building groups. This study emphasizes that design should be considered to achieve the flexibility of spatial scale through the different assembling pattern of basic-living-space-unit.