Search results

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the integration of industry 4.0 related technologies of telehealth within innovative housing models addressed to senior population, in order to facing the growing issue of a sustainable management of the population ageing.

A qualitative exploratory analysis of four case studies of senior cohousing facilities located in different countries was performed. The cases analysed were selected as pioneering cases in the adoption of innovative and economically sustainable organizational solutions.

The study made it possible to identify which are the common characters that successful experiences have highlighted. Although each facility needs to adapt to the social, cultural, demographic and economic context in which it is located, there are some recurring aspects, which have proved to be key success factors.

This research analyses only four cases. This suggests that the sample does not provide an exhaustive representation of the models adopted in this field. However, the study is an exploratory research and it can provide a basis for further analyses.

This study provides valuable indications for the design and management of senior cohousing facilities, as regards the services to be offered, the network of services and facilities that can be complementary to the residences, the activities to be conducted and organized, the degree of involvement of the elderly in the planning of activities and services. With regard to the adoption of telehealth-related technologies, the study provides indications on which new technologies resulting from the industry 4.0 revolution are going to be adopted, that is, remote surveillance, remote diagnostics and the use of sensors and video. These technologies, thanks to the artificial intelligence, can detect anomalies and provide predictive analyses on the behaviour and health of the elderly.

The study made it possible to identify the key success factors for senior cohousing facilities regardless of the characteristics of the context in which they are located. In addition, it provides a first analysis of the potential of telehealth-related technological solutions, paving the way for further studies aimed at assessing how, thanks to new technologies, the level of economic sustainability of senior cohousing solutions can be improved.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss residents' views of social and physical environments in a co‐housing and in a senior housing setting in Finland. Also, the study aims to point out important connections between well‐being and built environment.

The data include interviews and survey responses gathered in the cases. The results and analysis are presented at different case study levels, with the discussion and conclusions following this.

The findings show that the physical environment and common areas have an important role to activate residents. When well‐designed common areas exist, a higher level of engagement can be achieved by getting residents involved in the planning and running of activities.

This paper discusses residents' experiences in two Finnish housing settings and it focuses on the housing market in Finland.

The findings encourage investors and housing operators to design and invest common areas which could activate residents and create social contacts. Also, investors have to pay attention to the way these developments are managed.

This study is the first to investigate the Finnish co‐housing setting and compare social and physical environments in a co‐housing and a senior house.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that it should be possible to devise mechanisms which will enable communities to address the changing assistance needs of disabled and older residents whilst giving younger resident assistants an equity stake in the housing market. The existence of such mechanisms on a national scale would facilitate mobility between otherwise independent communities and maximise the choices available to residents requiring different forms of assistance at different stages in their lives.

The paper draws upon the author's personal experience of exchanging accommodation with a team of assistants. The author considers how this model could be made more sustainable and replicable. Action research is needed to explore similar models within the context of intentional communities.

Two pressing social challenges could have a unified solution. Cohousing provides potential for people to remain within an intergenerational community as they grow older and develop assistance needs, while providing accommodation equity. Today's “baby boomer” generation may contribute to less advantaged future generations by leaving behind them dedicated housing for assistants in order to make sure that such provision is present within communities in perpetuity.

As a disabled person, the author had found it interesting to actively explore with younger people the impact upon both generations of issues around housing equity. The author has already, and would like to test further, the potential of nonmonetary exchange within intentional communities.

CoHousing provides a new approach in the UK to older people’s housing, and meets a clear demand for similarly minded groups of individuals who would like to grow old together. The purpose of this paper is to explore how a Collaborative Design Process (CDP) can work, as applied to a soon-to-be realised project in North London.

Report by the architects with comment from an end user on a CDP including end users, architect, developer and housing association management.

A group of individuals that has invested in building decision-making capacity can participate meaningfully in the design of their future homes.

This research was focused on one development, so work on a wider range of projects would help test its validity.

Older Women’s CoHousing (OWCH), and similar projects, demonstrate an appetite for: mutually supportive, intentional communities; planned downsizing and contemporary, sociable design for the third age of life.

The CDP developed for OWCH was comprehensively documented. It has already been adapted for further cohousing developments, and is intended to continue to evolve with the demands made on it.

This chapter looks at the increasing interest in the cohousing phenomenon in Italy within civil society, public institutions, and academia. The most significant element to emerge from all this interest is the ‘ambiguity’ concerning the use of the concept. It is thus necessary to identify what the ‘Cohousing’ nomenclature is applied to, present it in its historical and geographic context, trace its origins and development on the basis of the related literature, and highlight the recent issues that have arisen from the debates held in international research networks. This chapter will advance the hypothesis that ‘ambiguity’ is playing, to a certain extent, a positive role, creating a common ground where different traditions, institutions, and social practices can meet and approach one another. I also propose considering the remarkable territorial activation expressed by emerging bottom-up initiatives as the most relevant specificity of the actual Italian situation from a public policies point of view. I identify the main issues at the national level and compare them with those issues found during field research carried out through participant observation. The introductory analysis of the reported case study, which focuses mainly on context conditions, shows the Ferrara bottom-up initiatives to be the (unintended) result of previous active citizenship public policies, thus revealing the importance of and the frames provided by urban policies to social innovation processes. As a future research issue, a shift is recommended from a blanket approach to a critical analysis of specific experiences.

This paper aimed to identify the impact that Industry 4.0 can have on the service sector and how its combination can generate benefits for Sustainability 4.0 in the context of the Triple Bottom Line.

A Systematic Literature Review (RSL) was developed using the following combinations of keywords on the Web of Science and Scopus databases: Industry 4.0 And Sustainability, Industry 4.0 And Service, and Industry 4.0 And Sustainable Development, in which 24 papers were selected.

As a result, the authors found 100 benefits for sustainable development, which were further categorized into 54 advantages for the economic area, 25 for the social segment and 21 for environmental aspects. In this way, the results can help private companies understand the use of these technologies aimed at sustainable growth, plus bolstering the government to conduct public policies to encourage these practices in technology organizations.

As a practical implication, this study offers insight into the evolution of sustainable development. It enables the emergence of works that wish to explore the service sector, providing relevant information for decision-making and influencing managers and policymakers on the importance of applying Industry 4.0 toward the sustainability of the service sector and its applications.

The originality of this study lies in expanding the understanding generated by 4.0 technologies, by diverting attention from the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, which have abundant literature on the subject. With this, this work demonstrated that modern technologies have greater possibilities of an action directed at the service sector, in addition to being able to contribute to Sustainability 4.0 from the perspective of the sustainability tripod.

Multi-generation cohousing projects are loaded with the expectations of inhabitants and planners, as well as political representatives. They are expected to foster a form of neighborly assistance, which is supposed to ultimately unburden social security. But evidence is scarce when it comes to central aspects like long-term development, the influence of context factors, the quality of community living, and the neighborly assistance actually provided. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Hence, this explorative study sought to specify the support activities that neighbors in one cohousing project carried out. A survey was conducted in three survey intervals, with questionnaires structured according to the ”Activities” chapter of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (WHO 2002).

Respondents reported receiving or providing assistance in all suggested areas of life, but some activities were more common than others. Respondents with long-term support requirements were not assisted by neighbors but by other caregivers. The results indicate that neighborliness depends on the individual activity radius since the scope of assistance varied along with socio-demographic characteristics. Respondents deemed reciprocity important to guarantee the voluntary nature of neighborly support and also to allow care recipients to specify how support should be given.

The author therefore suggests considering multi-generation cohousing projects as a means to foster Quality of Life rather than to cut costs.

Findings from this study with a focus on multi-generation cohousing with the legal status of cooperatives and implications for spatial planning were previously published in: Kuhnke, Y. (2015), “Nachbarschaftliche Hilfen. Hohe Erwartungen an Mehrgenerationenwohnprojekte in der Rechtsform der Genossenschaften” (Neighborly Assistance. High Expectations of Multi-generation Cohousing Projects under the Legal Form of Registered Cooperatives), RaumPlanung, Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 20-6.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on UK older people’s forums. Forums seek to influence statutory responses to ageing, and enable older people to speak up on matters important to them. The review examined three facets of forums: their membership, structures, and effectiveness.

Methods included searching databases, internet, and specialist libraries for materials relating to older people’s forums. Key points were extracted and source material described but not subject to quality appraisal. Relevant non-UK studies are included to draw contrast and comparisons.

Several studies and reports have explored forum members’ socio-demographic profiles, motivations and triggers for joining and the two-way rewards of participation. However, membership remains a minority activity, with only a small percentage of members actively engaged and the review highlights gaps in the literature on widening participation. Both statutory and voluntary sectors have supported forum development and sustainability. There is little data on formal structures but some exploration of the informal communications and behaviours that sustain them has been undertaken. Forums are viewed as effective but resource intensive. The size and representativeness of the membership, strength of influence and deployment of members’ expertise are all identified as potential contributors to effectiveness.

Some material may not have been accessible and there is potential bias by greater inclusion of journal published materials than other possible sources. Material was not quality appraised, and research literature and self-reporting by forums are presented alongside each other.

Practitioners should familiarise themselves with current older people’s organisations locally to ensure that consultations are broad and reach different groups. While partnerships with voluntary sector health and care providers are encouraged some of these groups may not wish to represent all older people. Wider reach may provide multiple perspectives. Help in kind as well as financial resources may be welcomed by older people’s groups, such as meeting spaces, assistance with administration, and briefings that are accessible. Offering to meet with older people’s forums to discuss matters regularly may provide insight into experiences of services and changing needs earlier than professional feedback. Dismissing older people’s forums as made up of the “usual suspects” is likely to be unfair and unhelpful to building up positive relationships.

The review provides a preliminary assessment of the size and scope of research and grey literature on UK older people’s forums, synthesising points of similarity and difference and identifying clear gaps in the evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to enquire how housing providers can facilitate a “social scene” which helps residents to bond together and which indirectly can generate both mutual aid and a collective voice.

The study of 16 retirement housing schemes (including social rented, extra care and leasehold), involved focus groups engaging altogether 130 residents, interviews with estate managers and a postal survey with 120 respondents across eight estates.

The findings highlight an important “community development” role for existing on-site managers and the risk that a move to floating support means losing this function. They illustrate the obstacles faced by retirement housing residents in developing collective social activities or a participatory voice in management. This paper is one of several ongoing and planned outputs of the study covering different aspects of the findings.

The initial study reported here is largely based on residents’ views. A follow-up survey of over 400 estate managers is now in progress.

The findings offer warnings about the potential and limitations of self-managed housing for the older old, and the dangers of replacing on-site staff by floating support.

The research fills a gap in previous work on sheltered housing by focusing on the community rather than the individual resident. It will inform planning of housing support models to build and sustain social capital in elders’ housing schemes.

Most older people wish to age “in place”. However, as current housing is mainly unsuitable for later life, architects have a key role to play. Yet, there is little architectural consideration for the notion of “ageing in place” and its various facets, beyond a functional focus. Architects seem to lack support to grasp inhabitants' sensible needs, and thus synergies with other human-centred disciplines could be enlightening. To ensure homes are designed in line with people's wellbeing, the authors aim to provide a state-of-the-art view, as to build a model supporting architects through their understanding of older people-environment relationships.

In this paper, the authors investigate the key concepts that could enrich architects' design approaches on “ageing in place”. A narrative literature review scrutinising English- and French-written publications from the last twenty years in various disciplines was conducted, with a focus on older people and non-institutionalised housing.

The results highlight five essential perspectives to be taken into account when questioning housing for older people: health, affective, social, built and contextual perspectives. Their meaning and ties are developed and then synthesised into considerations, calling for architectural creativity.

This fivefold theoretical model adds to the existing architectural body of knowledge by adopting a multidisciplinary and multidimensional angle, going beyond the predominantly pragmatic vision associated with ageing. It provides stakeholders in architecture with a fresh and clear insight of meaningful relationships between older people and their residential environment.