Evaluation and Suggestions of commercial spaces for Covid-19 prevention in Edinburgh, UK

Abstract

The global outbreak of COVID-19 poses a severe threat to various frontiers of life, which has attracted the wide attention of the government and the people to the epidemic disease. Various industries, therefore, have formulated epidemic prevention measures. The city’s public spaces are the main areas of close contact with people, which is the difficulty and critical point of epidemic prevention, especially in ancient cities with dense buildings. This article takes the city of Edinburgh in the UK as an example to explore the current situation and spatial problems of public space in residential areas along the street in the post-epidemic era by questionnaire survey. Meanwhile, this study also discusses and proposes measures to optimize the spatial contradictions of commercial spaces on the ground floor affected by the epidemic. Results show that commercial spaces on the ground floor are urban spaces with a highly dense crowd, high-risk disease diffusion, and relatively inferior control capability during the epidemic. Many ancient buildings in Edinburgh that have been preserved for hundreds of years also have some drawbacks such as narrow interior space and poor ventilation conditions, exacerbating the spread of the epidemic. By contrast, green space is more conducive to epidemic prevention and control. Combined with the advantages of green space, it is suggested to introduce green plants and improve ventilation of commercial spaces to reduce the spread of the epidemic, such as green plants separating spaces and ventilation filtering air.