Rethinking residential building design in high-density cities for enhancing pandemic resilience: Balancing importance and practicality

The relationship between the built environment and epidemic transmission is particularly pronounced within the context of lockdown policies and high-density urban areas. Non-pharmaceutical interventions have become increasingly important during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study proposes an evaluation index system for pandemic-resilient residential building designs in high-density cities, covering the entire design process including site planning, architecture design, building equipment and management. The system includes 64 design strategies, categorized into 15 sub-categories and 4 categories. Then, we evaluate the preference of each strategy by synthesizing the dimensions of importance and implementation difficulty. A questionnaire survey was conducted among experts who have experience with pandemic-resilient designs in high-density cities. Fuzzy synthetic evaluation analysis was implemented along with the “preference index” concept to identify the most important and practical interventions during the pandemic outbreak. The results indicate that “service and management” is the category that requires priority, followed by “property management,” “common areas” and “building morphology” in sub-categories. Among the design strategies, “waste receptacle,” “publicity and education,” “floor drain and water seal” and “environmental cleaning and disinfection” are the top four recommended strategies. This study provides policymakers and practitioners with effective and easily implementable prevention measures during an outbreak of respiratory tract infections. It also offers specific policy recommendations and application suggestions for new and existing buildings, contributing to creating a safer and healthier living environment.