Reducing distance

Abstract

The distance between the elderly and others is very large. This means that you have less to do with each other, know less about each other and this means that the distance is getting bigger all the time. The institutional buildings have a kind of imaginary “boundery” around their building, difficult to get in and to get in touch with the elderly. In the book “most people are good,” Rutger Bregman argues that the threshold that people would do more for each other has to do with distance between people. If you are farther away from someone you are less attempt to do something for the other. (Bregman, 2019). And with this distance comes fear of the ignorant “ignorance frightens the unknown.” Because the group of elderly people is growing the care can not handle it all. The moments of contact is getting smaller and smaller. And because of this problem and the fact that elderly are not getting in touch with others there a is a lot of loneliness. The observation of ethnographic research has led to several points of improvement: 1. The distance should be reduced between elderly but also all the users of space. We need to go ‘‘from forced to being alone to chosen to be alone’’ 2. Creating a sense of belonging If you would create space that stimulate that people are being seen and heard people feel appreciated. By creating a sense of belonging you would get more familiar with one another. 3. Get more familiar with one another By getting more familiar with one another you would do more for one another. If we take care for echater less care is needed. The goal is that by reducing the distance you create a sense of belonging and familiarity with each other. And this means that you would rather help someone, which means that the care would be partially relieved. The goal is to create an environment in Leiden where connection is stimulated. Distances are reduced. Spaces are designed to stimulated the spontaneous encounter. In my opinion we should design housing that is not only suitable for elderly but for several target groups. Making a distinction between elderly housing and others immediately creates distances between elderly and other users of space. So creating environment where several target groups life together where they can take care of one another. This eventually led to my research question: ''To what extent could reducing distances between users of space trigger a form of spatial design that create a sense of belonging and familiarity among people through the lens of elderly? ''