Nature and service of senior care : an exploration of care-models to encourage community-building amongst seniors in care home premises and give them agency

Summary: An ageing population leads to challenges in long-term care homes such as social isolation in multi-cultural communities. While working in Mumbai, India, I observed this social isolation of seniors in long-term care homes first-hand. Familial and financial limitations are insufficient in providing seniors shelters in their own homes, leading to greater demand for ‘nursing homes’ in India. The seniors in care homes with smaller populations were more likely to quickly find relationships among their neighbours. In larger-scale care homes hosting more than 100 seniors, the feeling of institutions, unfamiliarity kept the seniors socially disconnected, in Mumbai as well as the care homes I visited in Vancouver, BC. The policies about eldercare are not updated, leading to insufficient resources and outdated norms. As part of my MDes research, I also visited De Hogeweyk (a dementia village) in the Netherlands. I used methods like observational research, fly on the wall, and interviews with the management members. As a designer, I explored and made iterative design objects and experiences for human-human and human-nature connections. This thesis describes design research activities and prototypes such as guided outdoor walking and reflection practices, using peer designers as proxy participants. I describe my service design workshops and architectural space and layout discussions. This thesis work includes historical perspectives and personal reflection on nature-human connections such as described in the Bhagavad Gita and practiced in traditional Ikebana. One significant insight through the research was that experiencing time in nature might solve institutional issues, whether in India, Vancouver, or the Netherlands. The second important lesson learned as a designer, addresses how time pressure makes people take shortcuts, such as overlooking the importance of material in concept review and testing and too little or too much preparation in developing interview scripts and protocols. The research also reflects on iterations of different design concepts, repeating and improving, recognizing the failures and appreciating them. It is an essential step as a designer to learn from the process, especially when it is imperfect. Lastly, through this research, I found that nature, space, memory and social connection are interconnected, intricately woven together to help humans survive independently and with fellowship.