ABSTRACT
Private homes for the elderly are becoming, more and more, the working environment for staff in homecare and home healthcare. The benefits of care in, or in the vicinity of, people’s homes are apparent: reduced personnel sick leave, patient concern, healthcare costs and ultimately improved health. For this combination of activities to work well, housing and residential areas are required to be adapted to the demands of care services.
What happens to the housing of the elderly when apartments become working environments? And how is the situation experienced by the healthier spouse in the household? These questions are complex and require cooperation between several different professional skills.
This chapter focuses on the role of the built environment in these new situations of caring. How can architects re-think new buildings? Experiences are presented partly from an ongoing study where observations are made in the real care situation in the homes of older people. In this project, researchers from different disciplines collaborated on observations, interviews and literature reviews. Experiences are also collected from ten years of commitment to a master’s studio education project dedicated to the design of housing for the elderly and making proposals for new long-term future solutions for healthcare at home.
