Architectural style and green spaces predict older adults’ evaluations of residential facilities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyse the effects of residential facilities' design features on older adults' psychosocial responses. Participants ( = 192) were over 65-year-old residents who were randomly exposed to different experimental scenarios concerning a hypothetical residential facility for older adults, using a 3 × 2 between-subjects design (i.e. home-like vs. hotel-like vs. usual-standard architectural style; presence vs. absence of green spaces). After the experimental session, participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire that measured their attitudes towards short- and long-term relocation, anticipated residential satisfaction with the facility, and feelings of broken home attachment. The results showed (1) more positive responses to "home-like" and "hotel-like" architectural styles than the usual-standard type and (2) the positive impact of green spaces on the assessment of the facilities. These design features should thus play a role in both reducing the stressful impact of leaving home and promoting beneficial patterns, hence fostering "successful ageing".

A study of demographic difference in external visual preference evaluation of Chinese detached house

“…As the Chinese economy develops, people have also raised higher demands on the comfort level of housing, which justifies the increasing inclination toward a detached house as long as it is affordable. According to statistics, the number of villas/detached houses and luxury apartments constructed in China in 2003was 108,525 (China Real Estate Statistical Yearbook 2003, 2003. However, by 2016, the number had risen sharply to 294,616 (China Real Estate Statistical Yearbook 2016.…”

“…However, the subjects in this experiment were not categorized. Cerina, Fornara, and Manca (2017) showed that the elderly prefer local traditional residences with green landscapes nearby.…”

Residential Place Attachment as an Adaptive Strategy for Coping With the Reduction of Spatial Abilities in Old Age

“…Its relationship with a range of relevant phenomena has been verified, such as the connections with community participation (Anton and Lawrence, 2014) and with qualities of the urban residential neighborhood (Fornara et al, 2018). Less studied associations also emerged, such as relations with space appropriation (Rioux et al, 2017), acceptance of power lines (Devine-Wright, 2013), responses to natural hazard risks (Bonaiuto et al, 2016a), restorativeness (Ratcliffe and Korpela, 2016, 2018), walkability (Ferreira et al, 2016), architectural style of elderly facilities (Cerina et al, 2017), pro-environmental behaviors (Ramkissoon et al, 2013).…”

“…One important conceptual framework that has been created for understanding how, and to what extent, the residential environment plays a role in the older adults’ well-being and quality of life is the notion of Person-Environment (P-E) fit (Lawton and Nahemow, 1973; Kahana, 1982) and related models and constructs, such as the Complementary-Congruence Model of P-E fit (Carp and Carp, 1984), the P-E compatibility (Kaplan, 1983), the environmental support (Bonaiuto and Alves, 2012), and the environmental accessibility (Iwarsson and Stahl, 2003). It is to mention that also the well-known Flow theory stresses the positive consequences of a proper balance between personal skills and activity challenges (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 2000).…”

“…This kind of phenomenon is opposite to the topic addressed here, because it happens due to an increase of the environmental challenge (natural hazard affecting an urban place) in face of a constant human skill (in adulthood); on the contrary, the topic addressed by the present work has to do with a stability of the environmental challenge (a stable standard urban place) in face of a decreased human ability (in the old age). However, these two situations are psychologically equivalent from a theoretical point of view, if we frame them in terms of the Flow theory (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 2000), which conceives the human experience as resulting from the human skill / environmental challenge ratio as follows: apathy or boredom (low skill and low challenge), relaxation (high skill and low challenge), anxiety (low skill and high challenge), flow (high skill and high challenge). If we look at the two situations mentioned above, they are psychologically equivalent within this framework: in fact, if an adult person with stable skills has to face an overcoming challenging environmental situation (as in the natural hazard), the skill/challenge ratio becomes negatively unbalanced (in this case, due to an increase in the environmental challenge) and the resulting experience is therefore anxiety; similarly, if an older person decreases in her/his abilities to cope with a stable standard environment (as in the urban places we considered), again the skill/challenge ratio becomes negatively unbalanced (this time due to a decrease in the skill) and the resulting experience is anxiety too.…”