INTERIORS 89 Take care with flooring


With environment heavily influencing health and wellbeing, Ashley Hooper from Joseph Hamilton Seaton discusses how the specification of care home flooring can aid wayfinding, provide visual stimulation, and boost social connectedness


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onjure up in your mind the image of a care home. While specific features will vary, there are some commonalities about the way the interiors of these spaces look and feel. Long corridors, with equally spaced out doors, wide open plan communal spaces; care homes tend to be pragmatic rather than aesthetic in design.


Architects often focus on making these spaces safer for vulnerable residents – by making design choices such as the use of non-slip flooring, accessible entrances and exits, and clean, hygienic furnishings that keep people safe. However, the use of aesthetics to improve the day-to-day wellbeing and health of care home residents often goes overlooked.


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The use of design


The selection of certain colours, patterns and shapes can help, or hinder, the wayfinding abilities and comfort levels of those living with dementia. Roughly 70% of all care home residents in the UK have dementia, or some form of severe memory loss, according to the Alzheimer’s Society. Designing spaces that consider their specific needs, then, is crucial.


For people living with dementia, wayfinding problems can cause a great deal of stress, anxiety, and isolation. Wayfinding, i.e. the ability to navigate from one place to another, is integral to the independence and autonomy of a person, and the loss of this functional ability is one of the earliest signs of diseases such as


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The use of design elements such as signage and colour are vital to enable people living in care homes to navigate comfortably, safely and independently


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