During the recent global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are voluntarily or compulsorily required to stay at home and even work from home for several long and laborious periods. This is likely to happen in the future. Hence, a concern about the quality of living places has arisen, particularly in semi-open spaces, drawing more attention from users. This paper aims to measure the role, function, and influence of the balcony as a semi-open space in apartment living during the lockdown, by considering contributing factors in the function of balconies, including size, view, orientation, safety, and proximity together with residents’ preferences about balconies in two case studies with distinct approaches to balcony design. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire survey has been conducted and 322 residents in Tavus Tower and Mehr Housing Project located in Bandar-Anzali, Iran, participated. Based on collected data, the behavioural and functional performance of balconies and residents’ preferences were analysed by the IBM SPSS Statistics program. Results revealed that a high percentage of dwellers asserted the importance of having a decent balcony in an apartment and its far-reaching impact on boosting mental health and tolerating the prolonged pandemic. Also, the higher ratio of the area of a balcony to the floor area of an apartment, nature view from balcony, close proximity to the living room, and a higher sense of safety from balcony’s components can be regarded by architects to enhance the time of using balconies and the satisfaction of apartment users in Iran.

The walkability of urban areas is an important criterion related to the level of physical activity and public health of citizens. This research aims to measure this parameter in Golsar town located in Rasht, Iran. Two methods were used in this research: Street connectivity and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). The principal variables of street connectivity were measured in four districts of Golsar by Geographic Information System (GIS) to rank each one. Then, the acquired results were compared by the average walking time of the respondents of the questionnaire. The comparison explicitly indicated that there is a strong positive correlation between the measures of street connectivity and people’s tendency to walk. As well, District 1 had the highest value of connectivity and the highest average time for walking amongst the four districts. This supports the contention that walkability and the level of outdoor physical activities of people in each district are undoubtedly under the influence of the variables of street connectivity. Nevertheless, the evaluation of other indexes such as proximity, land use mix, safety, and density in Golsar, in future research. can expand our perception of the walkability of this region.

There is growing recognition of the association between neighbourhood factors and individuals' health. This systematic review examines the associations between urban neighbourhood built and social environment characteristics with different measures of physical functioning among mid- and older-aged adults over 45 years, focusing on cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs. It responds to the increase in publications on this topic following the COVID-19 pandemic. The systematic review included 25 studies written in English from 2018 onwards sourced from 8 databases. Studies were imported into Covidence and reviewed following the ‘Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis’ (PRISMA) protocols. Findings were assessed according to 13 neighbourhood environment variables: aesthetics, crime safety, greenness and parks, land use mix and destinations, neighbourhood disadvantage, pedestrian/street infrastructure, public transport, residential density, social environment, street connectivity, traffic safety, walkability, and composite variables. Significant associations in the expected direction were found for land use mix and destinations, walkability, crime safety, greenness and parks, social environment, and neighbourhood disadvantage with physical functioning in mid- and older-aged adults. Weaker evidence of expected associations was found for residential density and aesthetics. Future research avenues on this topic include investigating built and social neighbourhood environments in diverse geographies and populations, considering housing status and length of exposure to the neighbourhood environment, using longitudinal surveys over longer time periods and objective measurements.

1. Physical functioning, defined as an individual’ capacity to perform various daily activities (Painter et al., 1999; Rooth et al., 2016), is fundamental to independent living and healthy aging (K...