I am thankful to our elders

For three weeks in 2003 I lived as a nursing home resident while I was a graduate student in architecture. I was studying the impact of the physical environment of nursing homes on the everyday lives of the people who lived and worked there, so I checked myself into a facility in the Midwest as a young woman suffering paralysis on one side of my body. My stay there was crucial in the formation of my beliefs about what goes into making a first-rate nursing and rehabilitation facility, both in terms of the physical facility and the care that residents receive there. It was a personal experience from which I […]

Comfortably messy

When I visited a nursing home in Japan with my friend, he said “This place is comfortably messy. It makes me feel at home.” Being in the living room in this unit (10 elders live in one unit–total of 8 unites in the building), I felt so comfortable. It was also clear for me that elders in the space were completely relaxed. I was tempted to take a nap with the lady who were peacefully sleeping in the white sofa in the living room. This organization gives certain amount of money for staff members in each unit to decorate their unit with the elders. As a result, every single unit […]