Identification of Measures to Strengthen Resilience in Homes on the Basis of Lockdown Experience during COVID-19

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well structured and relevant in the resilient to pandemic literature field. Its position can be recognized in the number of studies aiming to identify measures to adapt homes in case of lockdowns. The paper, in fact, reflects on the resilience of homes in the lockdown situation on the perspective of health and well-being of people. Its aim is to propose solutions to enhance house behaviour and it uses a survey-based methodology.

The contribution is well designed, structured and the arguments are well presented and clearly expressed. Figures are also useful for a deep comprehension of the authors' position and findings. All parts are adequately presented and the methodology is sound.

However, I think that results could be even more interesting if compared with new results, so based on the same survey conducted also in another period in order to have a comparison. Additionally, the number of answers are not so high compared with the geographical extension. Another strategy to improve the study can be to do a second survey on a smaller context (e.g. a neighbourhood), with the aim to obtain a higher percentage of answers compared with the population.

Nevertheless, results are very interesting and I do not have any structural changes to suggest.

Author Response

All the suggestions proposed have been included in the Conclusions section, as new possibilities for a future study (Lines 1086 to 1090).

Reviewer 2 Report

a)The sentence “Behaviour of houses and flats was, however, uneven” in 3.5 section (page 12) should be rephrased.

b)The paragraphs in 4.1.3 section from “According to Wilson…” to “…during this harsh period” (page 30) should be moved in the Introduction.

c) The Conclusion section is poor. The contribution of the aforementioned research e.g. in bulilding regulations, legislative improvements, social KPIs etc, should be further analyzed.

Author Response

In the Conclusion section, reflections on regulations governing the design and quality features of homes have been added, since they are a key factor to achieve greater resilience and quality. Reference has been made not only to the conditions in newly-built housing, but also to those that regulate the renovation of existing residential buildings, as well as the minimum conditions to avoid substandard housing (Lines 1075 to 1080).

Also, new proposals for future research have been added.

Reviewer 3 Report

The article reports the results of a survey conducted on the adaptive capacity of housing during COVID lockdown, in the Spanish context. The article is well-structured, up-to-date and fits with the topics of this special issue.

However, for publication the article still faces a number of problems of approach, content and other minor issues.

Approach and content:

1. First, the adequacy of the survey and its results should be discussed. At some points it is commented that the sample that has answered the survey is not significant. Also, no type-morphological building distinction was made between the questions (beyond the age of the building, the number of floors and the type of tenure). Collecting information on the type-morphologies (historic centre, urban expansion, housing estates, single-family housing, etc.) would have given a better idea of the capacity for adaptation and resilience. Also to know the number of floors in relation to the total of the building, in order to know if the thermal or acoustic requirements vary in relation to the relative position in the building. Or even knowing a little more about the location of the dwelling would have helped to distinguish if spatial biases exist. Understanding the difficulty of conducting the survey again (and encouraging the authors to take these issues into account in future research) it would be useful to deal more comprehensively with the limitations of the survey design itself and its answers.
2. The core topic of the article is resilience and the adaptive requirements of users, with a special focus on retrofitting. It is closely related to a topic that has been present since the ‘first’ regeneration plans for historic centres (such as the paradigmatic case of Bologna in Italy): the adaptation of architectural types to contemporary or future requirements. The weak point of the article is to think that this dimension is something new (and even to consider that it may be temporary for COVID), instead of framing the work in the overall approach that has been demanding for a long time the importance of considering not only the technical / environmental obsolescence of the building, but also the architectural / urban obsolescence. COVID has only accelerated and highlighted the need to incorporate these dimensions into building retrofitting and urban regeneration, forgotten in recent years, but very much present in the pioneering experiences of retrofitting. In the Spanish context, authors such as Monteys, Montaner, in the field of architectural design, and Moya, Higueras or Monclús in the urban context should be studied.
3. Nor has it been the only survey of its kind (some of them promoted by professional organisations). The article should clarify what the main differences are between these works, and whether or not their results are aligned.
4. And precisely in the last place, it seems that the article merely describes the results of the survey. The discussion should incorporate a critical reflection on the current opportunity for the renovation wave by answering at least two questions:
   1. To what extent is European funding, and in particular Spanish funding, going to promote not only energy but also typological adaptation (lighting, ventilation, open space, internal flexibility) of buildings? For example, it is important to consider the weakness of the national funding mechanisms, as well as the loss of opportunity that a single approach based on energy/accessibility without considering liveability may entail. It is also interesting to see how the Basque Country's legislation is more prepared in this respect, as it includes liveability as a vector of retrofitting.
   2. If users have other, non-energy issues as a priority, couldn't working on retrofitting from a liveability perspective be a way of helping to promote the integral retrofitting (energy, accessibility, liveability and urban) of buildings?

Minor issues:

• check some English terms: free space or open space? habitability or liveability? I am not quite sure.
• the organisation of the figures is too space-consuming in the text; would it not be possible to organise/optimise their space, perhaps in combinations of figures that would help to minimise the overall size of the document?
• Be careful with some of the answers in the figures, which are not displayed completely. (E.g. figure 33).

I hope that the review will be useful to the authors and I trust that it will help them to improve their work.

____

Some references that could help in the linked comments:

Monteys Roig, Xavier, Magdalena Mària Serrano, Pere Fuertes Pérez, Anna Puigjaner Barberà, Roger Joan Sauquet Llonch, Carlos Marcos Padrós, and Eduard Callís Freixas. Rehabitar en nueve episodios. Editado por Ministerio de Vivienda. Madrid: Lampreave, 2010.

Montaner, Josep Maria. “El legado de la vivienda colectiva moderna / The legacy of modern collective housing”. ZARCH: Journal of interdisciplinary studies in Architecture and Urbanism 5 (2015): 24–39.

Moya González, Luis. “Reflexiones sobre aspectos físicos de la Ley 8/2013 de rehabilitación, regeneración y renovación urbanas”. Ciudad y Territorio, Estudios Territoriales XLVI, no 179 (2014): 75–79.

Higueras García, Ester, Julio Pozueta Echavarri, and Patxi J. Lamíquiz. “Criterios para la rehabilitación sostenible del espacio público en la ciudad de bloque abierto | Criteria for the sustainable rehabilitation of public space in the open-block city”. Portafolio 2, no 20 (diciembre de 2009): 8–20.

García-Pérez, Sergio, Vítor Oliveira, Javier Monclús, and Carmen Díez Medina. “UR-Hesp: A methodological approach for a diagnosis on the quality of open spaces in mass housing estates”. Cities 103 (2020): 102657. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2020.102657.

Author Response

“The article reports the results of a survey conducted on the adaptive capacity of housing during COVID lockdown, in the Spanish context. The article is well-structured, up-to-date and fits with the topics of this special issue. However, for publication the article still faces a number of problems of approach, content and other minor issues”.

Approach and content:

“First, the adequacy of the survey and its results should be discussed. At some points it is commented that the sample that has answered the survey is not significant. Also, no type-morphological building distinction was made between the questions (beyond the age of the building, the number of floors and the type of tenure). Collecting information on the type-morphologies (historic centre, urban expansion, housing estates, single-family housing, etc.) would have given a better idea of the capacity for adaptation and resilience. Also to know the number of floors in relation to the total of the building, in order to know if the thermal or acoustic requirements vary in relation to the relative position in the building. Or even knowing a little more about the location of the dwelling would have helped to distinguish if spatial biases exist. Understanding the difficulty of conducting the survey again (and encouraging the authors to take these issues into account in future research) it would be useful to deal more comprehensively with the limitations of the survey design itself and its answers”.

Response:

All the shortcomings of this survey have been included in the Conclusions section as new possibilities for future studies (Lines 1091 to 1095).

“The core topic of the article is resilience and the adaptive requirements of users, with a special focus on retrofitting. It is closely related to a topic that has been present since the ‘first’ regeneration plans for historic centres (such as the paradigmatic case of Bologna in Italy): the adaptation of architectural types to contemporary or future requirements. The weak point of the article is to think that this dimension is something new (and even to consider that it may be temporary for COVID), instead of framing the work in the overall approach that has been demanding for a long time the importance of considering not only the technical / environmental obsolescence of the building, but also the architectural / urban obsolescence. COVID has only accelerated and highlighted the need to incorporate these dimensions into building retrofitting and urban regeneration, forgotten in recent years, but very much present in the pioneering experiences of retrofitting. In the Spanish context, authors such as Monteys, Montaner, in the field of architectural design, and Moya, Higueras or Monclús in the urban context should be studied.

Response:

In the Introduction section, this article has been framed within the field of architectural / urban obsolescence, introducing the idea that the pandemic has accelerated this process (Lines 166 to 192).

“Nor has it been the only survey of its kind (some of them promoted by professional organisations). The article should clarify what the main differences are between these works, and whether or not their results are aligned”.

Response:

In the Results section, some of them have been compared to those of similar surveys conducted in Spain:

• Subsection 3.7.1 “Important features” (Lines 583 to 585)
• Subsection 3.7.2. “Missing features” (Lines 610 to 628)
• Subsection 3.7.4. “House shortcomings” (Lines 652 to 664)
• Subsection 3.7.6. “Enhancement demand in homes” (Lines 694 to 700)

“And precisely in the last place, it seems that the article merely describes the results of the survey. The discussion should incorporate a critical reflection on the current opportunity for the renovation wave by answering at least two questions:

To what extent is European funding, and in particular Spanish funding, going to promote not only energy but also typological adaptation (lighting, ventilation, open space, internal flexibility) of buildings? For example, it is important to consider the weakness of the national funding mechanisms, as well as the loss of opportunity that a single approach based on energy/accessibility without considering liveability may entail”.

Response:

In the Discussion section, subsection 4.1.4, a reference to the Renovation Wave Strategy of the European Commission in relation to liveability has been added (Lines 882 to 886).

“It is also interesting to see how the Basque Country's legislation is more prepared in this respect, as it includes liveability as a vector of retrofitting.

If users have other, non-energy issues as a priority, couldn't working on retrofitting from a liveability perspective be a way of helping to promote the integral retrofitting (energy, accessibility, liveability and urban) of buildings?”.

Response:

In the Discussion section, subsection 4.1.4, a reference to the Aid Plan for renovation of buildings and housing in the País Vasco has been added (Lines 887 to 893).

Minor issues:

“check some English terms: free space or open space? habitability or liveability? I am not quite sure”.

Response:

The English terms “free space” and “habitability” have been replaced by “open space” and “liveability”, respectively.

“the organisation of the figures is too space-consuming in the text; would it not be possible to organise/optimise their space, perhaps in combinations of figures that would help to minimise the overall size of the document?”

Response:

The following figures have been simplified in one:

• Figures 7 and 8
• Figures 11 and 12
• Figures 14 and 15
• Figures 17, 18 and 19
• Figures 21 and 22

“Be careful with some of the answers in the figures, which are not displayed completely. (E.g. figure 33).

I hope that the review will be useful to the authors and I trust that it will help them to improve their work”.

Response:

Figure 33 has been modified so that the text appears complete.

“Some references that could help in the linked comments:

Monteys Roig, Xavier, Magdalena Mària Serrano, Pere Fuertes Pérez, Anna Puigjaner Barberà, Roger Joan Sauquet Llonch, Carlos Marcos Padrós, and Eduard Callís Freixas. Rehabitar en nueve episodios. Editado por Ministerio de Vivienda. Madrid: Lampreave, 2010.

Montaner, Josep Maria. “El legado de la vivienda colectiva moderna / The legacy of modern collective housing”. ZARCH: Journal of interdisciplinary studies in Architecture and Urbanism 5 (2015): 24–39.

Moya González, Luis. “Reflexiones sobre aspectos físicos de la Ley 8/2013 de rehabilitación, regeneración y renovación urbanas”. Ciudad y Territorio, Estudios Territoriales XLVI, no 179 (2014): 75–79.

Higueras García, Ester, Julio Pozueta Echavarri, and Patxi J. Lamíquiz. “Criterios para la rehabilitación sostenible del espacio público en la ciudad de bloque abierto | Criteria for the sustainable rehabilitation of public space in the open-block city”. Portafolio 2, no 20 (diciembre de 2009): 8–20.

García-Pérez, Sergio, Vítor Oliveira, Javier Monclús, and Carmen Díez Medina. “UR-Hesp: A methodological approach for a diagnosis on the quality of open spaces in mass housing estates”. Cities 103 (2020): 102657. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2020.102657”.

Response:

All the references proposed have been studied and referenced in the article with the following numbers:

• In the Introduction section: [24], [46], [47], [48]
• In the Discussion section, subsection 4.3: [72]

Reviewer 4 Report

The topic is certainly part of current events these days.
The survey is very interesting and well laid out. It seems to be oriented towards providing urban health and building indications for planning. 
In this sense, there is a certain deficiency in the systematic presentation of the results.
It might be useful, in order to give the great work presented a full dignity, to refer the results of investigations on samples of people to technical research investigations on the same topics.
Otherwise, the paper seems to fall into statistical survey only and might be more suitable for journals in that field.
The results are set out critically, from the point of view of statistics and surveys of people's opinions, but between results and discussion, they should be accompanied by consequent technical indications.

 

Author Response

“The topic is certainly part of current events these days.

The survey is very interesting and well laid out. It seems to be oriented towards providing urban health and building indications for planning.

In this sense, there is a certain deficiency in the systematic presentation of the results.

It might be useful, in order to give the great work presented a full dignity, to refer the results of investigations on samples of people to technical research investigations on the same topics.

Otherwise, the paper seems to fall into statistical survey only and might be more suitable for journals in that field”.

Response:

In the Results section, some of them have been compared to those of similar surveys conducted in Spain:

27. Centro de Investigaciones sociológicas, CIS. Estudio 3285 sobre bienestar emocional. (Center for Sociological Research, CIS. Study 3285 on emotional well-being). 2020. Available online: http://www.cis.es/cis/export/sites/default/-Archivos/Marginales/3280_3299/3285/es3285mar.pdf (accessed on 29 March 2021).
28. Cuerdo-Vilches, T.; Navas-Martín, M.; Oteiza, I. A Mixed Approach on Resilience of Spanish Dwellings and Households during COVID-19 Lockdown. Sustainability, 2020, 12. Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/10198 (accessed on 29 March 2021).

The analysis is reflected in the following subsections:

• 7.1 “Important features” (Lines 583 to 585)
• 7.2. “Missing features” (Lines 610 to 628)
• 7.4. “House shortcomings” (Lines 652 to 664)
• 7.6. “Enhancement demand in homes” (Lines 694 to 700)

Besides, in the Introduction and Discussion sections (subsections 4.3.1. and 4.3.3.), it has been included a new reference to an Spanish survey which studies the demand for moving home and the main causes of it after the lockdown period:

30. Observatori Metropolità de l’Habitatge de Barcelona. Ajuntament de Barcelona. Encuesta “Habitando en confinamiento” la demanda de vivienda en el área metropolitana de Barcelona. (Survey "Living in lockdown. The demand for housing in the metropolitan area of Barcelona”). (2020). Available online: https://www.ohb.cat/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/LAB-Enquesta-OHB-Covid-19_Demandahabitatge.pdf. (Accessed on 11 May 2021).

“The results are set out critically, from the point of view of statistics and surveys of people's opinions, but between results and discussion, they should be accompanied by consequent technical indications”.

Response:

It is considered that technical indications have already been included in subsections 4.1 and 4.2 of the Discussion section, in which the most valued and missing features from the Results section have been analysed.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The article has improved on the issues raised during the first review.

Perhaps it might be interesting to qualify a minor point.
When speaking, from line 177 onwards, of the public space dimension it would be more accurate to speak of the 'urban' dimension of regeneration. The challenge of the urban dimension has to see a broad vision: not only the superficial issues of improving public space (lighting, water cycle, renaturalization...), but also the mix of uses, proximity, spatial inequality, and of course the good quality of public space (well defined, accessible, inclusive, vibrant... and its associated environmental sustainability opportunities).

Author Response

In the Introduction section the new and appropriate suggestions have been included. (Lines 171 and 191 to 194).