The Study of Lifestyle Clusters in Urban Senior Citizen Complex in Jhulun Taipei

• Main Authors: Chun-Jie Lien, 連俊傑
• Other Authors: Shu-Ying Tsai
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/qb3a8h

碩士 === 國立臺北科技大學 === 建築與都市設計研究所 === 96 === According to the statistics from Taiwan Ministry of Interior in 1993, the percentage of senior citizens (the percentage of those over 65s in Taiwan population) is reaching 7%, turning into an aging society. By November 2007, the percentage of senior citizens is up to 10.2%; the population of senior citizens is over 2.33 million. However, Taiwan senior citizen complexes need much more improvements in both living surroundings and facilities. Under the changes of family structure and social environment, senior citizens move into the apartments, but the process of moving in and the changes in life style both affect those seniors psychologically and physically. How to assist the seniors to build a better interpersonal relationship and thus re-construct the sense of home and community through” minimizing the space organization” and “developing diverse space” become an significant issue. Thus, this thesis analyzes the connection between lifestyle clusters and space levels from the aspect of environment behavior. Furthermore, the mutual influence between individual life and social activities in senior citizen apartments is also discussed. Through the thoughts and life experience of the seniors, this paper proposes practical improvements and the layout of life clusters in the apartments. By looking into the seniors’ participation in social activities , the scale of space they use and the average time of staying in apartments, the life styles of the seniors can be categorized into three types: the indoors , the sociable and the outdoors. From the aspect of activities, the outdoors seniors are more diverse than the sociable. The activities of the indoors are dull, compared with the other two types. The group of the sociable has more opportunities to encage in social interactions with others whereas those in the groups of the sociable and the outdoors have less social activities. Based on the current regulations of standard facilities and designs of senior citizen complex, this paper divides the designs for lifestyle clusters in the apartments into 3 layers—inhabitation unit, basic cluster and life cluster. Furthermore, analyzing the seniors’ behaviors from the aspect of space and organization, the lifestyle clusters of the seniors can be divided into four categories—inhabitation unit, small cluster, basic life cluster and life cluster, which are elaborated as below. 1. The main concern in the design of inhabitation units focuses on how to support the seniors to have an independent life through better designs of living space. The designs should consider the diversity of the seniors’ lives, providing ample living space and facilities as well as suitable interior designs for couples. 2. Small clusters are the core combination of inhabitation units, which consist of four to six units. Through sharing living space, each unit gets acquainted with each other and thus builds up neighbor relationships as well as sense of belonging. 3. Basic life clusters refer to the independent living space for the seniors, offering them the space and facilities in daily life, such as public dinning rooms, kitchens, washing machines, living rooms, entertainment rooms and balconies. The clusters are built up by two to three small clusters. 4. Life clusters stand for the social life for the seniors. These groups provide them entertainment and social activities which increase the opportunities of getting to know each other. According to the plan for senior citizen complexes, when three basic life clusters constitute a life cluster, it is necessary to have multi-functional recreation rooms and public space for outdoors activities. Regard to private space, semi-public space and public space, due to the trend of space-minimizing, the quantity of individual inhabitation units should be reduced and enlarge the dimensions of apartments. The total dimensions should be 40% lower than floor dimensions, which increases the space of semi-public and public space. The dimensions of semi-public space should be 20% higher than total floor dimensions. Public space should be adjusted according to the scale of complexes, around 15% of total dimension. Senior citizen complex is one of the housings for the seniors. Urban senior citizen apartments have small scales and communities as well as convenient transportation which help to prolong and re-construct the seniors’ life circles. Along with suitable designs of lifestyle clusters, these plans enable senior citizens to have stable, carefree and safe later years.