Abstract
The World Health Organization launched the ‘’Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats Report’’ in 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic. One of its modules focused on creating a secure housing environment. Housing open spaces played key roles in sustaining the residents’ well-being. Accordingly, the study questioned the detection of healthy open spaces and explored the possibility of incorporating them into a pandemic-preparedness social housing plan. It investigated the influences of natural light and ventilation as indispensable safeguards against infection. The research method presented the process of performing an adequate mapping for healthy open spaces in Rawdat Al Sayida Zeinab social housing project in Cairo, Egypt. The method adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The former was based on a site survey exploring contextual relations and social activities. The latter performed solar radiation and airflow simulation analysis to investigate the open spaces’ microclimatic performances. The results presented statistical charts and computational modeling and concluded with a Spatial emergency Pandemic guidance map supported by a numerical interpretation, conveying the locations and percentages of adequate healthy spaces to be used during respiratory pandemics. It is acting as a simple and legible pandemic map for the local communities. Moreover, it is facilitating the decision-making process for practitioners within social housing upgrading initiatives to develop designs coping with pandemic restrictions. The research is contributing to the current debate concerning practical experimentations for pandemic urbanism. It offered new insights guiding designers and policymakers to understand how cities would react to the emerging infectious diseases.