Corona hotels in Israel: Care and abandonment under the auspices of digital medicine

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Israel established a number of ‘corona hotels’ – hybrid spaces that were neither fully treatment-oriented nor fully incarcerational, in which people known or suspected to be infected with the coronavirus were confined, sometimes for prolonged and indefinite periods. This paper describes the experience of 25 people who were confined in corona recovery and isolation hotels between March and July 2020. The corona hotels exemplify how remote medical technology and digital medicine together enable a new ‘technogeography of care’, where care and abandonment are inextricably linked. The paper adds to the growing number of critical studies on digital health by showing how the employed technologies impact the concepts of human embodiment, subjectivity and social relations, as well as how the occupants negotiated the meaning of these technologies and resisted their effects.

A Socio-spatial Approach to the First Legal Hall Cohousing Setting in Switzerland: The Case Study of Hallenwohnen in Zurich

This study explores the collective settings of Hallenwohnen (hall dwelling) as a section of the Zollhaus settlement, which is the follow-up project by the Kalkbreite housing cooperative and has been in function since January 2021 in Zurich, Switzerland. Hallenwohnen is the first legal hall cohousing arrangement in Switzerland. The private and semiprivate spaces of Hallenwohnen consist of a large open hall with collective basic structures and mobile residential towers (roll spaces) as the core concept, which offer an affordable, self-managed/self-build, collaborative coliving and coworking arrangement in the center of Zurich. The qualitative case study method was applied through semistructured interviews with occupants of Hallenwohnen, direct observations, spatial investigations and document analyses. The results reveal that the innovative socio-spatial potentials of the intermediate spaces have been activated through the participatory intentions of the community. Living as one household in a collective arrangement and multiplicity usage of hybrid spaces have activated participation-capable housing spaces, while constraints and conflicts have mobilized the (re)negotiations and reinterpretations of collective housing spaces.

Hybrid spaces: Sustainable city components in the transit area of Jatinegara Station Indonesia

The Jatinegara Transit Area is an area of stations, residences and markets that have the potential to be developed into a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) area. The development aims to create a sustainable city and will become a hybrid area of a new residential ecosystem. In the research location, the rate of urbanization is relatively high which causes social and environmental problems that are very dangerous to the health and welfare of residents. Problems related to the environment include: increased CO2 emissions, loss of biodiversity, air pollution and climate change. Social problems involve the reduced space for interaction between residents due to the fulfilment of housing. Holistic planning is needed to solve this problem, through social and environmental approaches to create a sustainable city by developing a hybrid space model. The research method uses analytical methods (planning documents, design projects and literature), observation methods, comparative methods, etc. The first stage is mapping the existing conditions and the next stage is creating a model that applies a hybrid space. The conclusion of this research is that hybrid space is an alternative to improve air quality and provide public space for community interaction in terms of environmental and social sustainability.

Disrupting privatization: Enhancing Solo-cultural Interaction

As a product of rapid urbanization, residential developments are continuously proliferating in both density and scale. Driven by a capitalistic regime, Toronto's current high-density residential design is becoming homogenous in spatial planning and generating undistinctive spaces. With the existing programmatic configuration are internally and privately focused, these spaces lack the opportunity for community development and divers recreational amenities, transforming the dwelling to another urban Junkspace (non-place). By creating hybridized spaces that bridge private and public zones, this thesis proposes to generate spontaneous social activities and interactions within interstitial spaces. The new composed areas provide a dynamic living environment with direct access to shared recreational activities, integrated outdoor spaces, and creative community spaces, attracting an influx of users from the surrounding neighbourhood. Using strategies of shifting narratives, interstitial spaces, ambiguous voids, and integrated landscapes, the hybrid spaces reinvents the traditional monotony spaces and explores urban pluralism on both community and building level.

Disrupting privatization: Enhancing Solo-cultural Interaction

As a product of rapid urbanization, residential developments are continuously proliferating in both density and scale. Driven by a capitalistic regime, Toronto's current high-density residential design is becoming homogenous in spatial planning and generating undistinctive spaces. With the existing programmatic configuration are internally and privately focused, these spaces lack the opportunity for community development and divers recreational amenities, transforming the dwelling to another urban Junkspace (non-place). By creating hybridized spaces that bridge private and public zones, this thesis proposes to generate spontaneous social activities and interactions within interstitial spaces. The new composed areas provide a dynamic living environment with direct access to shared recreational activities, integrated outdoor spaces, and creative community spaces, attracting an influx of users from the surrounding neighbourhood. Using strategies of shifting narratives, interstitial spaces, ambiguous voids, and integrated landscapes, the hybrid spaces reinvents the traditional monotony spaces and explores urban pluralism on both community and building level.