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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2021.
Special Issue Editors
Interests: spatial and urban planning; urban design; planning of small settlements; ruralism and rural architecture; urban regulations; morphological models; settlement culture
Interests: sustainability and resilience of the built environment; built heritage; architectural and urban design
Interests: urban design; public space; urban regeneration; participatory practices; identity by design; research methods in urban planning and design
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Public health issues are closely related to the design and planning of the built environment. Over the last year, the contagious disease COVID-19 has affected the entire world and challenged some established practices in architectural and urban planning and design. New health-related determinants of space have been imposed, and the perception and significance of healthy places in the built environment has changed. COVID-19 has opened numerous new questions for the built environment, from the definition of human scale to the application of technologies to achieve socio-spatial justice and reconceptualize and reorganize the built space at micro and macro scales, among others. Altered circumstances not only affect people’s lives, their habits, and environments but also require a reconsideration of various aspects, including tools and intended outcomes of the processes of (re)forming these environments.
Operationalization of the healthy built environment is a complex process underpinned by a need to master past lessons, critically consider responses to current crisis, and envision coming trends and risks, all for the purpose of coping with future challenges successfully. Thus, the aim of this Special Issue is to formulate relevant research questions and provide adequate responses that reveal the characteristics of the built environment in circumstances characterized by the presence of massively infectious human diseases. Authors are encouraged to propose and apply novel multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary approaches in exploring various scales and elements of the built environment, from different types of buildings and closed spaces to segments of urban form and functions, i.e., (green) open spaces, urban density, transport, mobility, etc., to social environments and practices (e.g., social distancing) embedded into these layers of the built environment. The editors welcome manuscripts prepared either as comprehensive reviews or original research articles.
Prof. Dr. Alenka Fikfak
Dr. Saja Kosanović
Dr. Matej Nikšič
Dr. Christine Mady
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- architectural and urban design and planning
- vulnerability to health crises
- transformability, adaptation and resilience
- determinants of health
- physical, social, and mental health
- new spatial concepts for healthy built environment
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: The instruments of work at home spatial regulation: the case of Slovenia as a post-transition country
Authors: Gregor Čok, Gašper Mrak, Jana Breznik, Mojca Foški, Alma Zavodnik Lamovšek
Affiliation: Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Zoisova 12, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Abstract: The current Covid 19 epidemic has raised some fundamental questions in the field of spatial planning in terms of the importance of the workplace, the correlation of living and working environments, labour migration, and related health and environmental impacts. This framework also includes work at home as a unique spatial phenomenon with many economic, social and environmental consequences. Its regulation at both the planning and implementation levels poses a particular challenge, mainly due to the range and scale of business activities conducted in residential areas. At the same time, it has become important to critically evaluate the available instruments that enable the work preparation at home, also from the perspective of sustainable spatial planning and design. In the past decades, Slovenia has faced the challenges of regulating work at home three times. First, in the socialist period, when outlining the private craft activities; second, in the transitional period, when spatial conditions were prepared for the development of family entrepreneurship; and third, in the epidemic period.
The article presents the results of a multi-year research of work at home, which consisted of: a) analysing its territorial scope, b) examining the relationship between the morphological structure of settlement areas and the scope of entrepreneurial activities carried out there, c) analysing the institutional monitoring and spatial regulation instruments, and d) developing a proposal for improving the existing regulatory system.
In Slovenia, there is a tradition of relatively flexible provisions of spatial implementation acts regarding the organisation of work at home, which, in combination with dispersed settlement, diversified transport infrastructure and an above-average European share of single-family houses, provides favourable conditions for its general occurrence. The study has found that work at home appears in a similar range of activities in both rural areas and compact urban environment. The analysis of work at home during the epidemic (teleworking) also confirmed that citizens, especially in tertiary and quaternary activities, were relatively successful in carrying out their official duties, despite the constraints of daily commuting, as they had appropriate spatial conditions.
Analysing the legal framework for work at home, we found that the key elements of regulation in general terms are provided in: a) the institute of strategic spatial plans (settlement system), b) spatial implementation acts (zoned land use, permitted activities, project conditions for the modification of a residential building), c) responsibilities of other institutions and regulation in the field of commercial and labour law.
The characteristics of the existing system are also reflected in the high tolerance of administrative provisions, which can also cause anomalies in the space that generate negative impacts on the living environment (excessive traffic, technological noise, emissions, visual impact, etc.). In this regard, in the future it will be necessary to take more decisive decisions to regulate the phenomenon of work at home more effectively, especially in: a) the scope and type of business activities allowed in residential areas, b) more detailed urban design criteria, c) the field of development of alternative locations and spatial forms of workplaces, such as additional business branch offices, co-working, office sharing, etc.
With the further development of information and communication technologies (ICT), environmental challenges and the consequent response to the business organisation of individual companies, the trend towards working at home will certainly increase.