“Health in all design” was the theme of this year’s Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) 53 conference. This theme is very much aligned with CADRE’s mission to improve the health and wellbeing of communities through innovative research and design practices. This year, CADRE’s coalition projects with UTA’s College of Architecture, Planning & Public Affairs (CAPPA), UTA’s Multi-Interprofessional Center for Health Informatics (MICHI), and HKS: Agile Dwelling Units (AgDU) project were presented.
The presentation began with a quick introduction to Agile Dwelling Units: small, residential units that can be adapted across life stages. Such a lifelong approach was introduced as a new concept, called ‘(st)aging in place’. To age in place successfully, the home environment often needs modification to match individuals’ changing capacities throughout their lifetime. Hence, the (st)aging in place concept expands the focus beyond life during old age (aging in place). The (st)aging in place concept highlights the capability of the home environment to accommodate users in different stages of life, suggesting that a single residence will be equally suitable for an older person as it is for a young family.
“Agile Dwelling Units are
small, residential units that can be adapted across life stages. ”
The presentation highlighted the findings from the literature review that were completed in these disciplines: architecture design and construction, health technology, and human factors.
1. Construction
The concept of Agile Dwelling Units is founded on the idea of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) that are typically defined as a secondary smaller unit in relation to a primary larger dwelling unit. Nevertheless, the unit can be stand-alone or clustered together to form smaller communities with shared amenities to foster social connections and a sense of belonging within the community. Different types of construction methods and costs were also presented, along with some strategies to achieve social and environmental sustainability of AgDUs.
2. Health Technology
In the health technology research, team identified the potential, challenges, and strategies for the integration of gerontology in housing for older adults. In the past decade, the number of older adult tech users has increased[1]. Regardless, there are some gaps in compliance, accessibility, and environmental challenges that needs to be improved to enhance the potential of technology use to improve older adults’ health outcome. Choosing the right type of technology must be preceded by a comprehensive assessment on older adults’ health conditions. To inform this process, the health technology team developed three domains of technological designs that must be addressed in the implementation of health technology: customizability, usability, and personalized care.
3. Human Factors
The literature review on the human factors field focuses on identifying the steps to design human-centered AgDUs. The first step is identifying the user’s needs. It is important to identify where an older adult belongs in the spectrum of needs, to understand their ability, hence informing the type of support needed to maintain their independence for aging in place. It is also critical to comprehend the different types of activities that older adults engaged in their everyday life, which can be categorized into three groups; the basic activities of daily living (ADLs), the instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and the enhanced activities of daily living (EADLs)[2]. Beyond understanding user’s needs, design should have a clear intention, what are the desired (health) outcomes from older adults’ experience living in AgDUs? The human factors’ framework for planning AgDUs can guide designers to design health-centric AgDUs.
In the question-and-answer session following the interview, the audience appreciated the lifelong approach that this team proposed to design senior living environments. Integration of technology into the built environment was also discussed. We agreed that there is still much to learn about the best practice of health technology integration in the built environments. Therefore, future multidisciplinary collaborations are needed to further explore this topic, to better support the growing aging population.
Our team is actively looking for additional industry partners to join us in this coalition. We hope you join us!
Acknowledgments:
Presenters: Nicole Cevallos (UTA), Julia Lindgren (UTA), Widya Ramadhani (CADRE)
Key investigators: Dr. Upali Nanda (HKS/CADRE), Brad Bell (UTA), Dr. Maria Martinez-Cosio (UTA), Julia Lindgren (UTA), Southern Ellis (HKS), Dr. Gabriela Wilson (UTA), Dr. Marion Ball (UTA), Dr. Deborah Wingler (HKS), Roman Herrington (UTA), Aletta Van der Walt (CADRE), Tom Harvey (CADRE).
Student researchers: Landon Baldwin (UTA), Nicole Cevallos (UTA), Carson Lane (UTA), Widya Ramadhani (CADRE)
References:
[1] Faverio, “Share of Those 65 and Older Who Are Tech Users Has Grown in the Past Decade.”
[2] Rogers, Mitzner, and Bixter, “Understanding the Potential of Technology to Support Enhanced Activities of Daily Living (EADLs).”
