Abstract:

Singapore, a young multi-racial and multi-religious city-state in Southeast Asia, is facing a demographic challenge—that of a rapidly falling birth rate and an increasingly aging population. By 2030, Singapore is expected to be a “super-aged” society, where more than 21% of its population will be 65 years of age or older, as defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Hence, the urban landscape in Singapore is also set to evolve. We expect to see more acute care hospitals, community hospitals, nursing homes, senior care centers, and senior activity spaces. As infrastructure and spaces for older persons, or seniors, become an increasingly more significant part of the built environment in Singapore, there is a need to explore how the design of the physical environment can improve the well-being of seniors and that staff, caregivers, family members as well as the larger community. In this paper, a brief look into nursing homes in Singapore is done, followed by the data and findings of a small-scale study involving semi-structured interviews that were carried out to explore the needs and expectations of senior residents in a nursing home in Singapore. In essence, this study found significant outcomes concerning the needs and expectations of nursing home residents, such as the desire for sustained social interaction, the preference for human-based assistance (rather than technology-based aid), and the penchant for independence (such as for food choices or having a variety of preferred daily activities) by seniors in their everyday lives. These inputs can be insightful and instrumental for the effective and user-centered design of new nursing homes in this rapidly aging city-state or other locales with similar demographics and settings.

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