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Project Report: Elderly Care
Over the last decade, the creation of spaces that facilitate independence, engagement
and community has been at the heart of the most successful new programmes for
elderly care architecture. Schemes such as Hogeway in the Netherlands (featured in
WHD’s January 2011 issue), which aims to socially engineer families of like-minded individuals
who can support and nurture one other in a facility that encourages self-expression and
outdoor living, demonstrate an inspired
response to improving the individual
experience of the elderly in care.
But enduring global economic
uncertainty has thrown into jeopardy
the prospect of private individuals
or public services funding continuing
investment in similar facilities on a scale
required to accommodate an ageing
population. Filling the gap, however,
are charities and community groups,
inspired individuals and both private and
social housing developers – rather than
healthcare services – who are stepping
in to ensure that the frail elderly do not
become isolated in ageing silos.
In a time of dwindling social services
provision, there are two clear options
for ensuring dignity, comfort and
meaningful lives for the elderly: one is
to create flexible accommodation within existing neighbourhoods to allow people to stay where their roots and
friendships lie; the other is to create desirable accommodation that not only serves the frail elderly but also the able
bodied, and ensures an ongoing connection with the community.
In the US, Perkins Eastman – one of the leading firms for elderly care architecture – is seeing increasing innovation
in the kinds of architectural and cultural solutions their clients are demanding. One development, St John’s On The
Lake in Milwaukee (see case study), is a tower block of carefully tailored accommodation, with a lakeside location,
integrating a vibrant arts, wellbeing and entertainment programme for residents through partnerships with local
cultural groups. Meanwhile, in Japan, one inspired individual has created a series of highly distinctive dwellings in a
forest setting that encourage co-operative living. The unique Gojikara Village development integrates distinctive living
spaces with nursing care, a respite hotel, a community centre and a primary school. “The founder of Gojikara, Ippei
Yoshida, really believes that how we care for our elders is a symptom of the values of our society,” says Emi Kyota, an
environmental gerontologist who has written about the project in Design for Ageing (Wiley, February 2012) a new
book co-authored with, among others,
Pozzoni Architects’ David Hughes.
“In Gojikara he is trying to create an
authentic community feeling, but the
kind of community that might have
existed 50 years ago.” The buildings
Gojikara Village, Japan, one person’s vision for a community that respects the elderly
From isolation
to integration
Innovative new models of elderly care see accommodation
integrated into the local community, as well as the creation
of desirable new communities. Veronica Simpson reports
– as well as the plan – are quirky, individual, and mainly
constructed of wood, surrounded by trees and wildlife
and about as far from the manicured, clinical environment
of a care home as it’s possible to imagine.
“Integrating elderly care is the way forward,” says Greg
Penoyre, partner at Penoyre & Prasad, which has recently
completed designs for a scheme for social housing
providers East Thames Housing (see case study). “Elderly
care is seen as an institutional issue and as a quite different
set of issues for different stages of age and decline. My
big interest is in blurring the boundaries between stages
of peoples’ lives and making it possible to feel like the
place where elderly people are put is actually the place
where they live rather than the place where they are
44 January 2012 | WORLD HEALTH DESIGN www.worldhealthdesign.com