Dementia day care as a green addition to the city
An urban take on the farm-based day care concept supporting people with early stage dementia
R. Versteegen (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
B. Jürgenhake – Mentor (TU Delft - Public Building and Housing Design)
A.B.J. van Deudekom – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
L.M. Oorschot – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / A)
B. Lubelli – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Heritage & Architecture)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
The growing number of dementia patients in the Netherlands has many consequences. Many people with early stage dementia live at home and are cared for by relatives. This creates a lot of pressure and stress for both the patient and the informal caregiver. A well-known and popular solution to this problem is farm-based day care, which is unfortunately not yet applied in the urban fabric, despite its many spatial and functional advantages. In order to integrate this succesful typology in the urban fabric, the following research question was answered: ‘Can the successful characteristics of farm-based day care be implemented in the green-blue landscape of Dutch cities in order to support the spatial and architectural needs of people with early-stage dementia?’. Literature research and fieldwork shows that eight qualities make farm-based day care succesfull for people with early stage dementia: stimulating connection with nature, creating purpose in life, offering meaningful activities, supporting social interaction, supporting physical activity, focussing on healthy nutrition and offering a domestic atmosphere and offering daily structure. Using results from fieldwork and case studies, the eight themes have been made generically applicable in the form of design guidelines, to which the themes 'clear wayfinding' and 'balance in sensory stimuli' have been added. In order to make these features applicable in the urban fabric, they must fit in the Urban Green-Blue grid of the city, therefore the themes 'biodiversity', 'quality of life' and food 'production', from the theory on 'Urban Green-Blue Grids' by Pötz (2016), must be respected or strengthened while designing an urban care building. Locational guidelines resulted from this. These architectural and locational design guidelines are used to create an urban version of a care farm in the urban green-blue grid of the Hague.