Design
neighbours and friends is also very important. If you remove a person from one place to live in a care home that is 100 or even 50 miles away from where they were living, then you break their connections with the community. In Copenhagen, having care homes in rural locations as well as in city centres and towns gives people the option to remain in the community in which they lived. This couldn’t be in starker contrast to many of the senior living and care home facilities we see in the UK, which often isolate older people from their local communities.
Visual and physical connections Physical connections to the local community couldn’t be better exemplified than at the Bomi-Parken care home we visited next on our tour. Part of the Gyldenrisparken residential complex in Copenhagen, at Bomi-Parken there are no fences or gates and the care home is physically linked with the housing and schools that surround it, as well as being close to a local shopping centre. The elderly residents can interact with families and children going about their daily activities, which helps to combat loneliness and keep minds active. Lars Bo Sørensen, the manager at Bomi-Parken, told us that visual and physical connections with the local community were key design elements when the scheme was planned. He explained that the people who live around the care home use the facilities; they come in to use the gym and the café as well as the food therapy room and the diabetes clinic. This is in marked contrast to care homes in the UK where shops, hairdressers, cafés and therapy centres may well be included, but are often enclosed within the development rather
The Hogeweyk care village in Weesp in the Netherlands
than facing a public square and shops that are used by the local community. Visual and physical connections are maintained in other ways too. Residents of the care home can see and hear children at play in the adjoining school playground. A zip wire running just 10 m away from the windows of the care home has children zooming along it; rather than it being annoying, the sound is a positive addition and people from the care home sit on balconies watching, smiling and laughing. Observing the residents of Bomi-Parken choosing to sit on their balconies, go down to the garden or visit the local shops, it struck me that in a lot of care and nursing homes in the UK, people don’t have a need to leave their bedrooms as there isn’t much to do – and the activities that are provided sometimes feel institutional and involve little personal choice. Yet even facilitating a visual connection to the activities taking place in the local community can create tangible benefits, giving residents the choice to observe
the world around them and feel like they are also part of it.
A multigenerational approach Of course, actively encouraging social connections is one thing, but developing a scheme where the young and the elderly can live side by side, both benefiting from the social, cultural and economic opportunities of a multigenerational community is an entirely different prospect. However, it is one we are keen to encourage. There are numerous examples of this socially connected, multigenerational approach in the Netherlands, but perhaps the most famous is the residential and care centre Humanitas in the riverside town of Deventer. Humanitas Deventer is not a new care home – in fact, the original building dates back to the 1970s – but it has recently attracted international media interest because it is one of the first long term care facilities to welcome students. In exchange for 30 hours of volunteer work per month, students are able to stay in the centre’s vacant rooms free of charge. It’s an excellent example of intergenerational living.
The residential and care centre Humanitas in Deventer in the Netherlands 16
The first thing to note upon arriving in Deventer is how the care home sits within an existing residential area of the town. There are 160 residents and, incredibly, some 200 volunteers. This is the result of having the care home in the residential area where most of the residents once lived; neighbours and friends volunteer for an hour or two each week, which provides a seamless connection to the area where residents have lived all their lives. Allowing students to live in Humanitas has also helped residents stay connected to the outside world, while equally benefiting their mental wellbeing. There are different options available for the students; they can live there for three weeks, three months or three
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • January 2019
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