Architects can design homes, but not families. We can only design spaces as stages for stories to take place. Likewise, the blueprint for senior living involves space planning for a safe environment, but a successful blueprint requires more than the physical quality of the space. It requires people's participation and maybe some laughter.
There are many design guidelines that assist designers to define safe and proper facilities for senior living. Grab bars, railings and ramps help minimizing the chances of falling. Efficient sizing of kitchen and clearance spaces help the seniors to accomplish their tasks more effectively. Proper door knobs and door types provide easy access. They are all good, and they were created in response to most seniors' physical challenges. In a way, these are like medicines to cure or prevent the diseases, but not necessarily bringing about better quality of lives.
Quality of lives require some "soulful" involvement, personal touches and connections, just as how most of us experience in our homes.
Retirement facilities or nursing homes should be designed as an extension of home, but not merely a safe place to live. The blueprints for senior living should bring about transformational lives, so that the seniors may continue to experience the excitement of the aging process, just as how they grew from childhood into adulthood, with a spirit of celebration.
People are the essence of a successful space. While we want to provide the best design for the seniors, we tend to focus on their physical needs, like clearance for wheel chairs and counter surface height, etc. Although this is very important, we may consider looking away from the seniors, and to vision from their eyes. Other than their physical needs, what do they care the most? What do they look forward to? What should they expect for fuller lives? One thing is for sure, at least in a multi-cultural society in Hawaii: they don't want to be alone.
I visited a number of senior nursing homes and retirement homes. They were facilitated with dwelling units, sleeping rooms and grant dining halls or common areas. ADA regulations were well-met. The hallways were wide enough for two-way wheel-chair movement, bathrooms were full of grab bars, and sometimes with a crane. Home-like atmospheres were attempted by using warm-colored architectural finishes. They were safe places to be, but something was missing. They weren't always perceived to be a welcoming home where families and friends like to hang out.
While youths celebrate their physical growth with larger shoes and longer pants, seniors should celebrate their growth of wisdom with respect from their juniors. For many seniors, their children and families are what they are most proud of in their lives. The blueprints for senior living should include the senior tenants' families into consideration. Retirement homes or nursing homes should have spaces with home-like settings, where people can engage and enjoy as they were at their old homes. Perhaps there is a play area with rocking horses and building blocks for the little children to play with their grannies, a study area with computer plug-ins and WIFI connection, where grandpa can teach the grandson on history and mathematic subjects, and the grandson can show grandpa the new apps and games, an outdoor planting strip, where the tenants can show tomatoes planting tips to their friends. What about an art gallery where they can show their new tulips paintings and demonstrate Chinese ink brush calligraphy to their children? The goal is to create a new home that is an extension of the old homes, where the seniors may continue to enjoy, and it should be a better place for both seniors and their families.
My grandmother lived in a nursing home in Hawaii for several years. This facility is very simple architecturally. There is a series of bedrooms, an office and a common area, where most of the tenants eat, exercise and be entertained. There are a few rows of long tables, a few chairs and a large screen television. My grandmother shared a bedroom with three roommates.
In the beginning when my grandmother moved there, she did not like this new home. She felt that she was isolated, because she could not see her family everyday as she used to. The transition was not easy, even my father visited her everyday consistently at 2:00 p.m. After a while, she calmed down, but still wanted to go "home". One day, my father found a beach-front patio at the nursing home. Seldom people went there, maybe because it was hidden by the building mass. It was like a secret place, and it became my grandma and her son's daily meeting place. This patio attracted my mother and me to visit grandma more often because we could chat freely, laugh loudly, and move our arms around comfortably at the patio, unlike before, we only whispered to her on the hospital bed in a dim room.
A year later, my father took his mother back to her old home where she lived for 20 years. She asked him to take her back to the nursing home, because she felt that the nursing home was her home. She was not lonely there, because she enjoyed the visitors at the beach-front patio.
Retirement homes and nursing homes should be a place to celebrate age and life. They should be places where family and friends gather to connect, share laughter and even tears. They should be places where we all look forward to live as a reward to our seniority. They are safe places where our friends and families enjoy to come. While people stay connected, lives will continue to affect lives. Senior tenants might continue to discover each day as a present, and they are treasured and respected.
About the Author
Hannah Wong, AIA
Pacific Atelier International: www.pacificatelier.com