Community spaces in elderly housing: a study of design research communication

Recent experiences in environmental design have suggested the importance of understanding the wants and needs of users of various settings. Designers of large-scale environments find it necessary to turn to others professionals for guidance in designing more responsive settings for daily living.

Existing misfits between behavioral needs of the elderly and the community spaces in planned residential environments are explored. It was found that the designer often worked with inadequate and sometimes misleading information while confronted with tasks which demanded deeper understanding of human behavior and desires. The central issue of this thesis is focused on the questions: how can we bridge the communication gap between researchers and designers? And, how can the information, which were presented by behavioral researchers, be best translated into formats useful to designers? As an illustration, the thesis concludes with the descriptions of the guidelines for twenty-two activity areas deemed essential in the design of community spaces in elderly housing. In these guidelines, spatial relationships, environmental qualities, and furnishings and equipment for each are suggested.