Browsing by Subject "Seniors"
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Item Restricted Aging in place : adaptive reuse of existing apartments as barrier-free living spaces for elderly in residential buildings in Berlin : a guideline for a redesign and a practical application integrated into a showroom concept(2020) Arlt-Herrmann, Kathleen; Ebert, Carola; Pöğün-Zander, Yüksel; bachelor thesis in Interior Design"The central research question is: What are the design criteria for barrier-free access to existing apartments that undergo adaptive reuse with a contemporary and target-group oriented approach? During the last decades, the society's age structure turned in Germany because of fewer birth rates and the rising number of retirees. Hence elderly have to rely on financial, health-promoting, and political support. Governmental departments, health insurances, and housing companies have to find new opportunities for those parties concerned. Though finding the right consultation services and getting the right information is an exhausting process. Besides financial or bureaucratic challenges elderly are facing more and more physical, sensory, and cognitive restrictions in their daily lives. According to their hindrances, barrier-free access to their living environments is insufficient. As a result, they have to move to another residence or district with a lack of social contacts and a familiar living environment. A minority even move into care homes because of limited apartments with barrier-free access. The development of new living concepts is indispensable for people with low hindrances who can live independently with small adaptations. Furthermore, the costs could be lower than the care in care homes. One approach can be keeping the elderly in their accustomed environment with an adapted design of the apartments, so-called 'Aging in place'. This document assists as a guideline, which measures could be used for refurbishment to a barrier-free living space in existing living environments adapted for the people concerned and their relatives. Though, it cannot cover all aspects of a redesigned living environment, such as the financial spectrum, the overall building environment, for instance, entrance facilities, or interdisciplinary concepts for the elderly. Accessibility is a term that is known as prevalently. The most common barrier-free measures in the interior are floor transitions without thresholds and bathroom supportive elements. The thesis examines such measures and approaches for adaptive use in other living environments and people with other hindrances. Additionally, the guideline includes contemporary barrier-free design methods that focus on materials and colors and might significantly influence the well-being and mental health of the inhabitants."Item Restricted Room for collision : the key role of communal spaces in multi-generational co-living projects(2020) Ebert, Anna; Ebert, Carola; Larsen, Sigurd; bachelor thesis in Interior Design"[W]e are facing two drastic, and harmful, developments: a population that grows both older and more socially isolated. From an architectural point of view, I believe co-living projects, in particular, can offset loneliness in the elderly population, and isolation throughout. For my thesis, I have visited multi-generational co-living projects in Mainz and held interviews with current inhabitants, future inhabitants, and the architect of the projects, which are all built and run by one social housing agency. The examples I have visited and based my design on follow the so-called Bielefeld Model [...]. The Bielefeld Model would like to eradicate the notion of separate retirement homes, and rather build a functioning community that brings the whole neighborhood together. As strong as this concept is, during my interviews and accompanying research, I have discovered some room for improvement. The communal room element of the architectural examples I am working with is, so far, limited to a neighborhood café run by the inhabitants. [...] I believe for a community to outgrow its architectural borders and have a positive and community-creating influence on the greater neighborhood, it has to be very strong within itself. This is why I am proposing to add another layer of semi-privacy to the co-living project; something that can exist between the full privacy of individual apartments and the extreme exposure of the neighborhood café. I am proposing more communal rooms - rooms that are not open to the public, like the neighborhood café is, but reserved for use by the internal community. These concentric circles - home, to common room, to café - allow people to comfortably grow their sphere of public life. I believe this work is vitally important because intergenerational co-living projects with well-designed communal spaces carry a strong potential to bring together our fragmented society. [...] The findings of this paper are based on the comparative analysis of selected literature on the topic of co-living. I will first state the history of co-living and offer thoughts as to why it has repeatedly failed. I will then present the Bielefeld Model as a contemporary and promising case study. This case serves not only as a general example of multi-generational co-living, but also as the foundation of my design project. In addition, I will introduce various other contemporary case studies, with a particular focus on their public room program. For a better understanding of the particular case I built my design project into, I conducted interviews with the architect of the building, as well as with current and future inhabitants of comparable projects. In these interviews, I have uncovered perceived flaws and ideas for improvement in multi-generational co-living projects, rooted in the Bielefeld Model."