A case based study of design strategies to explore the notion of age-friendly co-housing community

School of Architecture, Huaqiao University, Xiamen, Fujian Province, 361021, China

^* Corresponding author: wuzhengwang@126.com

Abstract

Globally, the proportion of the older people population is growing and this will continue to rise. 1 out of every 4 people in cities will be an older person by 2050^[1] (World Health Organization, 2007). An age-friendly co-housing is an sustainable community, considering long-term interests, age-friendly co-housing can not only reduce social welfare expenditure, but also give full play of older people’s positive impact in society. Age-friendly co-housing requires more theoretical support and practice. The case analysis of two co-housing projects for older people are from the United Kingdom (London) and the United States (Oakland). The article analyzes and evaluates the case studies by using the WHO domains (see Table 1) and then concludes the design strategies from three aspects- outer space, communal space, and private residential space. This essay endeavored to explore the potential of age-friendly collective housing for older people, that is to say, connect age-friendly concept which is a hot issue today with co-housing model to solve the current ageism and population aging problems. A single design method cannot satisfy older people’s psychic needs, therefore, this article provides age-friendly co-housing with authoritative scientific theoretical background of interdisciplinary as the data collected from diverse fields as architecture, ecology, psychiatry, ergonomics and human sociology.