Assisted Living Housing for the Elderly: Design Innovations from the United States and Europe - Hardcover

Winner of the 1994 Progressive Architecture Award for Architectural Research "Victor Regniers work is one of the few significant additions to the research on one of the most important architectural challenges facing the design professions today: how to design supportive and attractive environments for our nations rapidly-growing, aged population. His research and writing challenge the profession to reconceive these environments as enriched housing rather than health care institutions. " Bradford Perkins, FAIA Partner, Perkins-Eastman and Partners "Victor Regniers new book should be read both for its approach to using environment-behavior research and for the lessons it has to offer about assisted living. The book is itself a prototype of inquiring process and design content. Its vivid examples and careful analysis significantly improve our understanding of the cross-cultural principals of prototype buildings. " John Zeisel, Ph. D Author, Inquiry by Design: Tools for Environment-behavior Research. "As the nation moves towards the development of a comprehensive health care system, it is clear that a major component of the plan will be alternatives to institutionalization. Victor Regniers exemplary book clearly and cogently discusses the newest, most exciting, and most promising of these alternative housing/health care arrangementsassisted living. For such a new concept to receive detailed attention from such a seasoned researcher is fortunate indeed. It is must reading for professional and consumer alike. " Paul A. Kerschner, Ph. D. Executive Director The Gerontological Society of America

Assisted Living Housing for the Elderly Design Innovations from the United States and Europe Victor A. Regnier, FAIA Although the elderly population over the age of 80 is the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population, housing arrangements for this age group are less than ideal. Most nursing homes are not designed to encourage independence or autonomy, nor do they appear residential in character. This book focuses on the physical environment of housing for mentally and physically frail older people who need help to maintain their independence. The relationship between design and the therapeutic milieu is stressed with special attention to the role of the environment in assuring resident well-being. Innovative design ideas from the United States and Europe are documented with line drawings, sketches, and photographs that illustrate important features. Particular attention is given to European housing arrangements, which tend to be more private, more therapeutic, and better designed for independent living than American models. Detailed case studies of thought-provoking projects are evaluated and discussed. Readers will gain insights from design evaluations that address:

• Ideas that use the environment to optimize control, stimulation, accessibility, and privacy while encouraging physical exercise, intellectual achievement, social interaction, and autonomy
• Effects of therapeutic approaches, creative management policies, innovative land-use mixes, and broad social policies on architectural design
• The interface of function, policy, and planning on the configuration of innovative housing arrangements

The author introduces 15 themes for making projects more attractive, supportive, and therapeutically effective for older residents. Assisted Living Housing for the Elderly will meet the needs of architects, planners, interior designers, landscape architects, gerontologists, developers, nursing home administrators, housing managers, housing finance specialists, and policy makers.