ROUND TABLE REVIEW: DESIGN FOR DEMENTIA NETWORK 2: CREATING SUPPORTIVE SPACES FOR DEMENTIA CARE 47
Two architects returning from the fi rst event were Clare Cameron of PLP Architects and Fiona Walsh of DDS (Dementia Design Services) who both recommended that schools of architecture not only “talked about design for dementia, but “invited experts in to open the eyes of young designers to the possibilities.” Walsh said: “it needs to be absolutely ingrained in design, we need to move this knowledge into the mainstream.”
There is potentially a yawning gap between the knowledge and practice of some designers (such as those at the table), and more mainstream architects however. Gemma Bottomley said that a “lot of architects don’t know the basic principles” of design for dementia, such as “wider corridors, bedrooms not facing each other. We are taking on projects at stage four or later, and we wonder ‘how are people coming up with this?’”
Research with empathy
There was a lot of in-depth discussion around the veracity of research methods for identifying the impact positively or negatively of different design interventions on people with dementia. Eef Hogervorst mentioned some eye-opening examples, such as cushions that could talk to patients (less successful), and different types of chairs for encouraging exercise. We were delighted to include a dementia nurse consultant, Jane Mullins, to give valuable hands-on insights from a clinical perspective as well as research into the key factors of dementia design, and do’s and don’ts. She has worked in Memory Clinics in Bath and Cardiff, “listening to and observing” people with dementia, as well as working in Swansea University on codesign models with creative industry partners.
She expressed concern with the proliferation of information and advice on dementia online, and private healthcare sources, “how much is research and evidence-based – everyone suddenly has an opinion.” She offered the initial feedback on the round table that a future event should include people with dementia here, referencing that many of her colleagues have dementia, which helps inform the work despite the challenges. With this being a very complex area with a wide range of impacts depending on the individual, “We need to come to a place of empathy,” said Mullins. When it comes to research methods for establishing the effect of design, she said that “everyone wants to measure everything quantitatively, and it’s not that way [with dementia].” Instead, she said, researchers “should be drawing from more anthropological disciplines, because we’re observing people, and their behaviors.” Mullins pushed back against the Cochrane-type approach of quantitative, rigorous data and said “we need different ways of measuring.”
Testing design impacts & codesign Event chair James Parker asserted that while there are “decades of research” into the effects of the environment on people living with dementia and other conditions, was there a need for “design- focused, separate sets of guidance; the baseline for designers that parses all that out into what they really need to know?” While post-occupancy data from ‘live’ projects is key, Citizens With Experience’s Rob Hayles advocated (at the fi rst round table)
PERSONAL TESTIMONY
Delegates gave some personal testimony of the impact of design on people with dementia, bringing a powerful focus to the discussion
setting up a a design ‘lab’ to test the effects of elements such as lighting, underfl oor heating, paint, or fl ooring, to “see what that actually does.” And at the second meeting, Martin Quirke of DSDC said that the “elephant in the room” in terms of research was “we’re not asking the end users what matters to them” – in short, codesign. Jane Mullins lamented that a design lab had been established at Cardiff Metropolitan University, but the funding had subsequently been withdrawn. Eef Hogervorst said “this is where the VR comes in, we had two labs, in Watford and Loughborough, where we looked, for instance, at different thermal environments, and how comfort levels could affect activity levels.” However, she admitted there were challenges; “it’s a strange environment, it made people with dementia a little bit more apprehensive, a little bit more insecure, because they couldn’t really navigate that space.” She said that as a less potentially disturbing alternative, VR had benefi ts as shown in work at Loughborough University. For example, “recreating the ‘wrong’ space, and then seeing how you can adapt that environment and observing how people navigate. Thereby, she said, evidence of what doesn’t work in terms of elements such as fl ooring, colour, and lighting, could be gathered, as well as what does. Alongside such data, codesign approaches with users could be the panacea for aligning each design as closely as possible to individual needs, despite their various challenges. Martin Quirke explained how VR has played a crucial role for the DSDC’s codesign research, for example a pilot project where the University couriered VR headsets to people’s houses, which “worked really well.”
ADF SEPTEMBER 2025
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