Abstract:

This study aims to develop an assistance program for the customized housing design for the elderly, which is based on the rapid growth of the elderly and the increasing needs for better residential environment aroused by economic development and growth in income level. Today we are facing various problems resulted from rapid increase in worldwide the elderly. In 2026, Korea will enter a super-aged society, which means 20% of population will be the elderly. Aging phenomenon affects various industries quite a lot. It is also making big change in the elderly housing market too. The elderly are not simply weak and in financial need any more. Now they have high marketability and new value. The elderly users tend to participate actively in designing the house. In designing housing, bidirectional communication between users and architect is essential. For this, users must have certain amount of knowledge in architecture and need to express their requirements clearly. However, there are communication problems resulted from the lack of architectural knowledge. Therefore, this study sets its goal to develop the assisting program for customized housing design for the elderly through harmonious communication with the elderly, the future key users in the industry. For this, literature review related to the elderly, interview, and user survey were conducted. Additionally, in-depth interview targeting the elderly and architects was conducted to compensate the defect. Based on this research, for the basic knowledge of architecture of the elderly users, a learning model needs to be developed considering physical, psychological, and social characteristics of the elderly, and a learning model suitable to the characteristics of the groups needs to be proceeded. Also, the methods of participation and communication need to be developed through proper combination of “design” and “selection for menu and option”. In conclusion, this study suggests the direction of future research for developing assisting program by the combination of the way of learning and communication. Through this study, it is possible to increase the quality of the elderly housing. Also harmonious communication with architects through the assisting program will raise the user satisfaction. In the future, the assisting program proposed in this study will be developed to be applied to real users.

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