Before the COVID-19 pandemic, people spent on average around 90% of their time indoors. Nowadays, more than ever, with work-from-home commands in place, it is important that they rethink the design and procedure of buildings. Indoor common space parameters straight affect the comfort and well-being of occupants. After COVID-19 cooperates, occupants are at increased danger for many infections make worse by social distancing. The aim of this study, to assess how to provide social distancing by evaluating the functionality of the plan type on the common indoor spaces in the multi-story apartment buildings in Erbil City. The methodology in this study integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches to increase the accuracy of the research results. This study chose ten different floor plan types of multi-story apartment buildings established on space syntax (software design) analysis, and one primary syntactical indicator is visual connectivity. This research study responds to two questions that discover the effects of functionality in indoor common spaces to provide social distancing of residents. The results determined that the layout design of the apartment space influences the social distancing of areas. Therefore, the results preferred the single-loaded corridor (gallery) plan over other types to provide social distancing post-COVID-19. The research establishes a foundation for future design and offers visions for new study instructions besides findings.

Architecture plays a crucial role in expressing identities. Cultural heritage as a sustainable process identifies the representation of architectural identity and its continuity. This study aims to create a model of the sustainable continuity of cultural heritage as an approach to studying architectural identity in Erbil. This study contributes to revealing a comprehensive model that includes the relationship between inherited and created sustainable elements related to cultural heritage that affects the continuity of architectural identity. The study combined visual analysis using graphical representation, the analysis of previous studies, field surveys, and questionnaire surveys as methods of data collection. The rationale behind selecting Erbil is related to its unique sustainable developments related to its cultural heritage through the ages, as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. This paper built two hypotheses. The first assumes that there is a significant correlation between elements that represent cultural heritage as a sustainable process and the continuity of architectural identity, and the second assumes that certain elements of cultural heritage have a greater effect on the continuity of architectural identity. The proposed model revealed a strong correlation between independent variables that represent cultural heritage frameworks such as the typo-morphology of house layouts and facades, sociocultural factors, and sustainable development factors and the dependent factor of the continuity of architectural identity in houses situated in Erbil. The regression analysis demonstrated that the most effective factor contributing to the continuity of the architectural identity of houses in Erbil is the physical characteristics related to the typo morphology of the house’s plan layout.

Architecture plays a crucial role in expressing identities. This study aims to create a model of sustainable continuity of cultural heritage as an approach to study architectural identity in Erbil City. The study combined visual analysis using graphical representation, analysis of previous studies, field surveys, and questionnaire surveys as methods of data collection. The rationale behind selecting Erbil City is related to its unique sustainable developments related to its cultural heritage through the ages, as the oldest continiously inhabited city in the world. The proposed model revealed a strong correlation between independent variables that represent cultural heritage frameworks of (typo-morphology of house layouts and façade, sociocultural factors, sustainable development factors) and the (continuity of architectural identity in houses situated in Erbil city) as a dependent factors. The regression analysis demonstrated that the most effective factor contributing to the continuity of the architectural identity of houses in Erbil city is the physical characteristics related to the typo morphology of the house's plan layout. The study revealed a comprehensive model that includes the relation between inherited and created sustainable elelments related to cultural heritage that effects on the continuity of architectural identity.