The Residence

The Empathetic Aging Project (EAP) has evolved from a deeply personal encounter with improper aging practices. As a spectator to the biological, psychological and social decline of a family member, I sought the opportunity to undertake the research of gerontological design within my honours degree.

From performing a literature review the profound agency and complexity of the research prompt, “How may design assess an individual’s experience of aging in place within Victoria, Australia?”, was realised. In addition, through analysing existing market precedents, it became clear that the majority of immediately available at-home geriatric healthcare tools and services are insensitive, inaccessible and perpetrate a narrative of discriminatory dependence on inappropriate solutions.

We don’t need more things… we need intersecting solutions to complex problems

Gene Bawden, the Deputy Head of MADA’s Design Department shared this quote during a the Monash Design & QUT Design: Design for Change Symposium over the semester break.

I found this quote to be extremely profound when framing my research project as the emerging need for effective and considered Aging in Place (AIP) tools/services is currently met with ‘things’ that are incompatible geriatric rights. The current geriatric healthcare market demonstrates the rigid dichotomy, instilled by designers, between surveying and caring for elderly individuals AIP.

I believe that the EAP offers a novel contribution to the field of geriatric design research as the project, from its inception, has been guided by a gerontological ethic and human-centred methodology. Therefore, while the predeceasing designs have been developed with geriatric users in mind, the EAP has been developed with elderly individuals at the heart of the project to ensure that the design outcome is self-actualising, accessible and affordable.

The EAP challenges existing, and explores emerging, healthcare practices with the “spirit of health”. The spirit of health is a term reminiscent of the Wabi-Sabi philosophy, referring to a health perspective which acknowledges and permits an evolution of self. This practice seeks to empower the elderly individuals who engage with the project and its outcome. I have framed the EAP design intervention outcome as a design for and through the spirit of health. This outcome should be generated utilising an attitude of elderly social emancipation while also facilitating ongoing engagement with the methodology. The design outcome then seeks to diminish communication barriers between elderly individuals and their supportive community, who may experience shame and fear when acknowledging their personal aging process. The EAP therefore seeks to model caring conversations and interactions between elderly individuals and their community

The utilisation of participatory design methods has shaped the design outcome into one which empowers elderly individuals to demonstrate their personal agency through making informed decisions regarding their lifestyle practices. The EAP seeks to utilise creative media to degrade the social stigma barrier towards the natural human processes of aging. The EAP therefore acknowledges elderly engagement with the home as active adversity to a decline in health and proposes the utilisation of design as a socially modifying agent.

As I continue to document my weekly advancements and learnings within this critical inventory, I will seek to regularly engage with relevant peer reviewed literature. This may support my sense making and rationalising of the EAP project within the larger field of design research.