الفهرس 
HEALTH CRISISOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 372 |  |  |
| | | from | 372 | | |
Abstract
The world is facing now one of the biggest disasters in modern history, the corona virus disease. Very few phenomena in human history have had the same impact on our societies and cultures as outbreaks of infectious diseases; yet remarkably little attention has been paid to these phenomena. Alternative care sites (ACS) across Egypt were widely underutilized during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, while the number of patients and severity of their cases overwhelmed the healthcare system. The challenges brought on by the pandemic have shown the necessity of designing surge capacity to control the situation.
This research aims at making our healthcare system more resilient through adaptive reuse of buildings that are not vital in time of health crisis, to provide alternative care sites within a non-healthcare setting or building with optimized safety and limited risk. It focused on one building typology which is schools due to their accessibility, availability, expandability, geographic distribution, and modular design. It studied advantages and disadvantage of adaptive reuse, offering recommendations for conversion of existing schools and for future schools’ design to be easily converted.
The thesis consists of four parts and ends with conclusion and recommendations. The first part (Chapter 1) reviewed the negative impact of health crisis on communities and the resulting healthcare gap, and it discussed the biological background of infectious diseases from epidemiological point of view, exploring determinants of diseases. The second part (Chapter 2) reviewed the main concept of adaptive reuse, the benefits we reap, barriers we face through the process, types and strategies of intervention. It focused on alternative care sites going through ACS models corresponding to the needed levels of care. It also went through the adaptive reuse process to establish an alternative care site. The third part (Chapter 3) started with comparing between the efforts of the three countries; the United States of America, the republic of China and the republic of Egypt to understand the global healthcare preparedness and response actions. It moved then to exploring the adaptive reuse of hotels, arenas, and tents in details. The fourth part (Chapter 4) used the results of the previous chapters which included the architectural requirements of an alternative care site to check the validity and efficiency of the selected building type (schools) for conversion to alternative care site. The results include the levels of care that can be hosted in existing and future built schools when converted to ACS. It also includes recommendations for existing and future built ones to be smoothly converted to alternative care sites.