Description

One of the most significant changes in our world today is the shift in population demographics. The people of the world are getting older. In 2000, there were 600 million people aged 60 and over; there will be 1.2 billion by 2025 and 2 billion by 2050.[1] By 2050, the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young for the first time in history.[2]

People are living longer today for several reasons including advances in medical science, technology, health care, nutrition, and sanitation. An important consequence of this progress is that those aged 80 or older are the fastest growing age group in the world.[3] Although this larger older population is in better health than ever before, they have some modified abilities. Sensory, cognitive, and physical health, mobility and dexterity changes are prevalent among older persons, and raise many questions about the ways that we think about human-environment interaction.

Attendant to this historic demographic shift is enormous social change. Throughout their lives, this older population, particularly the baby boomer generation of the 1960s, has been a force for social justice and transformation. They have used their numbers to initiate changes in civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, gender identity rights and the rights of those with disabilities. Without question, they are leading changes in the rights of older persons to lead independent lives as full participants in all aspects of our contemporary culture. On the practical level, this includes changes in attitudes and policies on ageing, accessibility, safety, health care, employment, living arrangements, community planning, maintenance of independence and life quality. The rights of older persons are a key component of social sustainability, which “is focused on the development of programmes, processes, and products that promote social interaction and cultural enrichment. It emphasizes protecting the vulnerable, respecting social diversity and ensuring that we all put priority on social capital. Social sustainability is related to how we make choices that affect other humans in our ‘global community’.”[4]

Where and how people live is one of the primary elements of social sustainability. In the development of the United Nations Principles for Older Persons (resolution 46/91), the UN General Assembly recognised the importance of living conditions and housing for the elderly, and infused it throughout all five categories relating to the status of older people: independence, participation, care, self-fulfilment and dignity. Key principles related to housing for the aging population include:

• Access to adequate food, water, shelter, clothing and health care through the provision of income, family and community support and self-help;

• Ability to live in environments that are safe and adaptable to personal preferences and changing capacities;

• Ability to reside at home for as long as possible;

• Ability to utilise appropriate levels of institutional care providing protection, rehabilitation and social and mental stimulation in a humane and secure environment;

• Ability to enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms when residing in any shelter, care or treatment facility, including full respect for their dignity, beliefs, needs and privacy and for the right to make decisions about their health care and the quality of their lives.[5]

These principles have the primary goal of promoting active and independent living for as long as possible. While many older people prefer to stay in their own homes or apartments because they have close ties that are connected to where they have been living, others are interested in or might need new modes of living or places that provide more amenable weather conditions, community conveniences, services and health care.

Unfortunately, most typical housing design caters to younger sectors of the population, and can pose obstacles to those with sensory, mobility or cognitive limitations. As a result, new thinking about housing for older persons that provides better choices for ageing has been emerging during the past few decades. Innovative ideas about living full lives for as long as possible involve both living arrangements (i.e., inter-generational housing, co-housing, etc.) and the redesign of housing itself to support a wider range of abilities. Concepts of universal design are at the core of these explorations, and provide a basis for “increased accessibility, safety and health for a diverse population.”[6]

Universal design is essential in the development of all new senior housing concepts. It maps well onto the United Nations Principles for Older Persons and goes further, defining more clearly the practices necessary to transform the everyday environment into one that can accommodate those with different needs. Not only does this approach involve “the design of products, information, environments, and systems to be usable to the greatest extent possible by people of all ages and abilities”,[7] but it is also a “socially focused design process grounded in democratic values of non-discrimination, equal opportunity and personal empowerment.”[8] With roots in the Civil Rights Movement,[9] universal design emerged from the idea of “barrier-free” or “accessible design”.[10] However, it moves beyond concepts that are based solely on physical function, and includes the comprehension and sensory enhancement of products, environments and systems. It offers seamless solutions that are not stigmatising, but, instead, are mainstream components of our built world. According to Dr. Edward Steinfeld, director of the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDEA) at the University at Buffalo – State University of New York, “Universal design does not claim to accommodate everyone in every circumstance. Rather, it continuously moves toward this goal of universal usability. Consequently, a more appropriate term may be universal designing, a verb rather than a noun.”[11]

By designing for a diverse population, universal designers integrate usability by everyone into their work on a routine basis. This approach leads to greater inclusion for many groups often neglected in the design pro­cess including older persons, people of small stature, frail people, etc.[12] If independence is the ‘what’, universal design is the ‘how’. The Seven Principles of Universal Design, developed in 1997,[13] point the way to the implementation of this approach, and can be adapted to any design situation. When considering housing for older persons, the principles can be applied to specific situations as demonstrated in the following examples.

Principle One: Equitable Use

Principle One: Equitable Use[14] – Housing is usable by anyone, and does not disadvantage, stigmatise, or privilege any group of users. No-step entries are an example of an equitable feature that allows all people to enter the dwelling in the same way.

Principle Two: Flexibility in Use

Principle Two: Flexibility in Use – Living environments accommodate not only a wide variety of individual choices, but also adapt to user’s varying functional abilities. For example, placing kitchen counters at various heights permits people who are of tall or short stature or those who are in seated positions to prepare food in a comfortable manner.

Principle Three: Simple and Intuitive

Principle Three: Simple and Intuitive – All aspects of the domestic environment are easy to understand regardless of the inhabitant’s experience, knowledge, language skills or concentration level. Bathroom taps that make operation apparent and that clearly indicate temperature levels are an example of a universally designed solution. Light switches that are consistently located in relation to room entrances and that contain uniform “on/off” indicators help people to intuit lighting operation.

Principle Four: Perceptible Information

Principle Four: Perceptible Information – The housing communicates all necessary information effectively to all users regardless of ambient conditions or the user’s varying cognitive or sensory abilities. Both audit­ory and visual warnings on appliance buzzers and security alarms alert people to important information, and circumvent negative situations that might occur because of low vision, hearing limitations, environmental noise, and dark or clouded spaces.

Principle Five: Tolerance for Error

Principle Five: Tolerance for Error – The design of residences minimises hazards and adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions by all users. Built-in shower seats are an example of a universally designed feature that can prevent slips and falls while bathing. Niches for keys and other items near every entrance door help users to remember where they locate items that are often misplaced.

Principle Six: Low Physical Effort

Principle Six: Low Physical Effort – Everyone can use the dwellings efficiently, comfortably and with minimal fatigue. Locating all basic living requirements on one entrance grade level reduces effort for those with mobility difficulties.

Principle Seven: Size and Space for Approach and Use

Principle Seven: Size and Space for Approach and Use – Housing provides appropriate size and space for approach, reach, manipulation and use regardless of the user’s body size, posture or functional abilities. For example, wide doorways and passageways provide a clear path of travel throughout the dwelling for all inhabitants. Reachable cabinets give users access to all stored items.

As demonstrated in these examples, universal design is common sense design that is human-centred. It is a set of ideas, principles and practical solutions to a complex set of issues that directly affect the quality of life not only for older persons, but for everyone.

Whatever benefits universal design ultimately brings to society, the biggest winners will be older people. There are few approaches to housing that will do more for seniors than universal design. It is an option that is both sensible and economically possible, especially now given major advances in technology that make mass customisation and digitised solutions more feasible than ever before. In addition, people are beginning to understand that universal design can promote conditions in which older people can minimise their dependence and instead flourish as active members of their communities. They are realising that universal design gives older persons options to lead the kind of lives they choose by giving them built environments that support a wider range of abilities. They are recognising the enormous potential of this once quiet­ movement to build a more socially just world by bringing equity and independence into their daily lives. Now that universal design is becoming part of social consciousness, there is no going back.

---

Originally published in: Eckhard Feddersen, Insa Lüdtke, Living for the Elderly: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2011.