Integrative Ways of Residing Health and Quality of Residence. A Concerted Trans-Disciplinary Research Effort - AIDAH ‘14-‘18. Architectural Inventions for Dwelling, Ageing and Healthcare

Paper in proceeding, 2014

The original AIDAH environment intends to generate cross-disciplinary research and implementation projects for a sustainable built environment that confront three major challenges. (1) Increasingly diverse demands on the housing market call for flexibility and adaptability in resilient ways. (2) An ageing society requires new residential models that combine dignity and appropriate care but also provide good working environments for personnel. (3) Profound changes in technical conditions for caring and medical treatment necessitate rethinking traditional healthcare situations, developing new situations ranging from complex care in residence to intensive care units in hospital and patient hotels. Sustainability issues at stake in patterns of residential behaviour must be considered to have paramount importance in any strategy for a resilient urban future. The involved teams provide different and complementary perspectives focusing on the common notion of quality of residence considered in architectural, spatial and experiential properties of built environments for housing and healthcare contexts. The applied conceptual and theoretical framework focuses on architectural and caring innovations for reconfigured spatial situations that enhance sustainable caring, and improve health, welfare, and living quality. Our research effort will focus on identifying and characterizing strategies directed towards the integration of different ways of residing. The scientific integration in conceptual and methodological terms between architecture qualitative research, sociology of residence, and caring sciences is intended to bridge gaps and initiate cross disciplinary approaches. Objectives include identifying and articulating new resilient qualities in designs supporting care processes and healing environments, thereby providing new operational knowledge developed in close collaboration with diverse stakeholders. International exchanges will provide further strategic evidence-based design support for decision makers in planning, building and healthcare services. The cross-disciplinary teams of researchers from architectural design, social and caring sciences are based at the Centre for Healthcare Architecture and the CIB W069 Residential Studies, both hosted by Chalmers.