Parc de la Distance design for outdoor social distancing
Studio Precht in Austria has designed a maze-like park divided by high hedges
that allow people to be outdoors while maintaining social distance during the coronavirus pandemic.
Design Features
Chris Brecht, founder of Studio Precht, designed Parc de la Distance after many public spaces around the world were closed due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The park had many avenues divided by hedges 90 cm wide to maintain a safe physical distance between its visitors.
Arranging the tracks in a fingerprint-shaped spiral pattern creates multiple tracks that can be used simultaneously.
Each of the red granite gravel paths through the park is approximately 600 meters long and takes visitors from the edge of the park to the center,
where the fountains are located, and the back circulation.
Gates at the entrances and exits of each road, which take about 20 minutes to walk,
indicate whether the road is occupied or not.
But there’s also inspiration from Japanese Zen gardens, the circular motions and bumps of pebbles centered on the cornerstones.
The park is proposed for a vacant plot in Vienna, where the famous Schönbrunn and Belvedere parks are currently closed.
Design aim
Although Brecht designed the park in response to the current coronavirus outbreak,
he believed the social distancing park was a beneficial environment for cities after the pandemic.
The park was designed to create a safe physical distance between its visitors. After the epidemic,
the park was used to escape the hustle and bustle of the city to be alone for some time.
He lived in many cities, but he thought he was not alone in public.
Brecht also believed that following the epidemic made people appreciate outdoor spaces and sought to escape the hustle and bustle of cities more than before.
He thought this pandemic had taught them that they needed more places to escape.
City centers should not be determined by their estates, but by their real escape,
by the possibilities that allow an escape into nature.
In place of banks, traffic and office complexes, city centers must be redesigned with gardens,
wilderness and plants.
Lack of nature was also a problem in many urban areas and Parc de la Distance provided a haven.
Precht
It Is an Austria-based architecture studio established by Chris and Fei Tang Precht in 2017, the pair was co-founders of Penda in China in 2013.
Precht recently designed a modular housing system that can support vertical farms and a modular tree house that looks like a cartoon character.
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