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    What is the future of cities faced with heat waves?

    Forecasts for 2100 predict that, thanks to climate change, weather conditions will move approximately 6º to the south in relation with geographic zones. This means, according to the article publiched in AOC, that pre-alpine Geneva will have the present climate of Palermo, while Lyon will have the temperatures of Tangiers, with all the changes of flora and fauna entailed and the predictable mass migration of people seeking a better environment in the north. What are the possible answers to this colossal challenge?

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    The Pandemic, Southern Urbanisms and Collective Life

    La pandemia global ha impulsado una tendencia a pensar en términos épicos: totalidad, catástrofe, circulación. Este ensayo apuesta por una lectura diferente que renuncie al trasiego de planificar y pronosticar, de proyectar e igualar. Propone la vida colectiva como tema para un análisis que se centre en las formas en las que la mayoría urbana está intentando sobrevivir y hacer frente a las estructuras de desigualdad que ahora llevan la nueva impronta de la covid-19, al mismo tiempo que mantienen sus formas más antiguas de distanciamiento y exclusión.

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    Rethinking La Rambla

    Some years ago, La Rambla, a much-loved thoroughfare in the centre of Barcelona, ceased to be an everyday space for citizens to become an iconic street of the global metropolis devoted to tourist monoculture. Now, the crisis caused by COVID-19 and the absence of tourists has left it in critical state. How can it be brought back to life, and how can one of Barcelona’s historic and symbolic streets be returned to its citizens? Rethinking La Rambla is the theme of the monographic issue Nº 43 of the “El món demà” (The World Tomorrow) series.

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    Pandemic adds greater urgency to outstanding challenges in humanisation of public space

    Rebajar las emisiones de CO2, renaturalizar las ciudades, combatir a los efectos nocivos del monocultivo turístico y la economía digital que han alterado el tejido productivo de las ciudades, etc. Expertos internacionales analizan para el diario Ara los retos que el espacio público afrontaba antes de la pandemia pero que la Covid ha acelerado poniendo de manifiesto que las ciudades formen parte de un ecosistema más amplio.

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    How post-pandemic architecture has always shaped our cities

    “The history of architecture is the history of infectious diseases”, says Beatriz Colomina, theorist of the relationship between architecture and public health, in a video for El Confidencial. The struggles against cholera epidemics that devastated cities around the world in the nineteenth century brought about sweeping changes in urban planning. Later, the tuberculosis pandemic paved the way for modern architecture, introducing elevated buildings with large windows and terraces to combat the disease. Now, COVID-19 is making us rethink homes, offices, schools, and public space in order to adapt them to the new conditions. Architecture and urbanism have once again taken centre stage in the struggle against a pandemic.

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    Balcony rights and wrongs

    During the pandemics, balconies have offered a platform for display, solidarity, communication and protest across a planet. They have become a symbol of a developing global and local togetherness, says visual artist and writer Will Jennings in the essay published in the journal Landscape. He reflects on the history of balconies, their essence between inside/outside, private/public, voyeur/viewed and their role through Covid and also raises the question about their future. After lockdown recedes, and noise and pollution return, will these balconies be vacated once more, or will they remain occupied as a critical component to urban life, community, and nature?