RESIDENTIAL HEALTHCARE - Evaluation of apartment layouts for senior persons.

Paper i proceeding, 2012

Residential Healthcare is a new, but relevant research-area with a background in the demographic situation with aging societies in most developed countries around the world. New challenges and possibilities occur when care and healthcare moves into private homes. In Sweden there is an increasing of not only home-care but also home-healthcare which will impact the layout of housing with new demands. This paper describes a recently started project with the aim to analyze, from a number of aspects, the empirical material of more than 60 different design-solutions of Housing for elderly, made by Master-students in design-project run for the last 7 years. The design-solutions are illustrating research-questions, which I, as the teacher, have stated in the course-program. Small but attractive and accessible flats for 1 and 2 persons are complemented with space for flexible use of healthcare, treatments of feet, massage, hairdresser etc and also for common activities. The need for such housing was identified a result of a recent investigation from the government of Sweden (SOU 2008:113). We have been working in existing context with real construction clients, planning to build such facilities and real sites. The focus is not only on the elderly but also on the staff in home-care and home-healthcare. What are their possibilities to perform a good work in ordinary private homes? What needs to be specifically considered in the design of new housing? The project will be using the actual design-solutions as empirical work-material, the architectural research technique Research by design. Complementing empirical materials will be the design of recently built facilities for Senior Housing in Sweden. Workshops, as a complementary method, with staff from homecare and home-healthcare will be implemented, catching the experiences from experts. Parameters for measuring the outcomes will be from the area of architectural qualities as well as from accessibility and usability in a broad perspective.