Study on the Relationships between Behaviour Styles and Elderly

Livable Space in the North Area of China

Wang Hongyi, Zhou Bo, Ren Jie

and Guo Jia

School of Architecture and Fine Art, Dalian University of Technology, No.2 Linggong Road, Ganjingzi District, Dalian, China

Keywords: Elderly Institution, Facilities, Spatial Element, Behaviour Style.

Abstract: The numbers of the elderly more than 60 years old have 1.67 billion in China，accounting for 13 percent of

the total population. However, only 3% of the elderly population can enjoy services of the endowment

facilities. Therefore, How to improve the living environment of the elderly is still an important issue in the

field of our urban and rural development. This thesis is based on the north of China. It takes some elderly

institutions in the city Dalian as research objects. The research is for a pattern of a suitable living space for

old people as a master line, try to find the relationship between the spatial constitution and living behaviour,

elaborates the basic spatial characteristics of the research objects, then discussed the relevance of the

formation and spatial composition through the analysis of questionnaire. Then in results of analysis, it

proposes some spatial constitution models which are adapt to the northern area in China, provides scientific

basis and perfect technical reference to design, construction, management and development of architecture

for aged people.

1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND

AND PROBLEM

The developing countries stepped into the aging

society with the advances in medical and health care.

According to the relevant studies, the aging has

become a worldwide problem. At present, it is

emerged for the first time in the history that the

older population is more than the total population of

infants. In the future, both of the older population

and the proportion in China will be the No.1 in the

world. China will face serious challenges. From the

20th century, China has stepped into the aging

society (Fig.1). More and more people began to

accept elderly institution as their pension place.

Those Medium-sized institutions are very welcome.

Elderly institution is a kind of social institution.

Elderly who live in there get the financial aid from

country, family or themselves. The institution can

provide basic necessities and other services for

elderly.

Dalian is an ideal place for pension. As it has a

good geographical environment and climatic

conditions. So far, there are 267 elderly facilities and

96 facilities of them are elderly institution, as shown

in Fig.2. However, there is a serious fact that we can

not ignore. Most of these institutions have some

problems in space utilization. So, the paper based on

the behaviour of the elderly, by classifying space

and analyzing the relationship between spatial

elements and elderly behaviour, come to a

conclusion. The conclusion can play a role in how to

improve the quality of elderly persons’ life.

2 OUTLINE OF OBJECTIVES

This thesis is based on the north of China. It takes

some elderly institutions in the city of Dalian as

research objects. After the status survey, it analyzed

the following four dimensions around the spatial

constitution and domain forming: facility types,

spatial elements, the basic properties of the elderly

and the living behaviour. The thesis’s purpose is try

to find the relationship between the spatial

constitution and living behaviour, while try to

provide a technical basis for the National Natural

Science Foundation research project: Elderly

comfortable space model in the north area of China.

Hongyi, W., Bo, Z., Jie, R. and Jia, G.

Study on the Relationships between Behaviour Styles and Elderly Livable Space in the North Area of China.

In Doctoral Consortium (DCICT4AWE 2016), pages 10-14

Figure 1: Chinese population development trend.

Figure 2: Aged people quantity and way of endowment.

Table 1: Survey method and content.

The basic

situation of the

investigation

The basic condition of respondents’

facilities, year of build, type of

construction, the year of set up,

living condition, reconstruction, and

so on.

The interview

survey

Operator's attributes, establishment

of motivation, management mode

Business methods, the elderly

condition, and so on.

Actual

measurement

Drawing plan, picture of furniture

and display detailed arrangement,

taking pictures, and so on.

4 Investigate

Observing action content of indoor

and outdoor and the use of space

condition for the old according to

time slot during one day.

Questionnaire

survey

The old man personal attributes,

health, family status, stay causes,

life behaviour , use of the place,

space satisfaction, needs and

expectations, and so on.

Additional

investigation

Reconfirm on contents of

investigation 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

3 STATE OF THE ART

This paper is supported by National Natural Science

Foundation of China (50778031).Based on checking

of existing research results ， we have not found

related research about space composition model and

the specific spatial form of aged people facility,

which is the starting point of this article. Innovation

of this research has the following several aspects:

 Summarizing the basic plane constitute mode

of the endowment facilities in north China.

 Combined with the related research in the

field of environmental behaviour ，analysis of

the relations between aged people’s behaviour

and architectural space.

4 METHODOLOGY

The objects of this article are selected according to

their operational nature/scale and architectural form.

Since 2007, we have done the general survey,

interview surveys, mapping construction plan and so

on. After the initial data compilation, though the

observation survey, questionnaires, we get more

systematic data. Then, based on the sorting,

classification, analysis, statistics, induction and other

methods on those data get some valuable

conclusions. (Table 1)

5 EXPECTED OUTCOME

Different building forms have different indoor

spaces. Different indoor spaces have different living

behaviour . Different living behaviours should be

treated in different design ways.

5.1 Spatial Classification and Spatial

Elements

Construction space is a complex. It is not only a

manifestation of building structures, but also rich in

many elements, such as spatial form, orientation,

scale, the relationship between furniture and

entrance and so on.

According to the openness of space usage, the

interior space can be divided into the following three

types: private space, semi-open space and open

space, as shown in Fig.3. This paper will take the

activity room and hall space as examples to discuss

the relationship between spatial elements and elderly

behaviours.

5.2 Elderly Behaviour Classification

There are four types of behaviour in this paper:

intimate communication, spontaneous communica-

tion, social communication and necessary

communication. Spatial quality of these four

Study on the Relationships between Behaviour Styles and Elderly Livable Space in the North Area of China

Figure 3: Types of space.

behaviour is decreasing in turn. Meanwhile, the

spatial quality is also proportional to the number of

behaviour (Fig.4).

 Intimate communication: it appears in the

communication between friends and relatives.

It is the most closely communicative action.

 Spontaneous communication: it appears where

the environmental conditions are suitable and

the spatial forms are attractive.

 Social communication: affected few by

physical space form, it can appear in any time

and any where.

 Necessary communication: it appears in public

space, such as say hello and so on. It is

affected by the people around.

Figure 4: Types of the old people’s behavior.

6 STAGE OF THE RESEARCH

The relationships between the elderly behaviour and

the lobby hall and activity room are shown in Fig.5.

(1) ZSIn.: as it is located in a residential building, so

there is no lobby hall and activity room. Only the

living room can be used as a public place. In other

words, its function is equivalent to the other hall and

activity room. Its spatial form is just a simple cube

space. The interior furnishings are a table, a TV and

several chairs. Some fitness equipments piled up in

the balcony. Because of the lack of some functional

space, there are not enough activities for elderly to

choose. In the course of the investigation, we found

Figure 5: Relation between elements of space and behavior.

DCICT4AWE 2016 - Doctoral Consortium on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health

that most of the behaviour occurred between elderly

are social communication and necessary

communication. However, elderly person’s life

behaviour also changed the original use of space.

For examples, the balcony became into a fitness

room. It is a good phenomenon if not shielding the

main sunlight.

(2) DL-1In.: it is a functional organization. It has

separate activities rooms and lobby hall. During the

observation survey, we found the following points.

Lobby hall: The hall divided into two parts by

the middle aisle, as shown in Fig.7. The A part is

more popular than B. During nearly 6 hours

observation, we could see some elderly went to there

to have a rest or just take a walk, but no one went to

B part. The reason is that there is no any furniture in

B part. So we can say the spatial elements influence

elderly person’s life behaviour .

Activity room: each floor’s north rooms are

activity rooms in this institution. Their average area

is 35 m2. But we can see from these photos that

there are only few facilities and furniture. So these

rooms’ utilization rate is very low. If a large space

with no more division and design, it is not good for

elderly communication.

(3) DL-2In.: It is a classic elderly apartment building

with completely functions.

Lobby hall: The hall is also divided into two

parts (C and D), as is shown in Fig.7. In the south

part, there are only several chairs and reception

desk. Compared with C part, part D is a carefully

designed area. There is some good furniture, such as

sofa, tea table, book shelves and so on. But only few

elderly went there to stay a while. Why? Though

some interviews and analysis, we get the following

points: (a) the floor is raised 30 cm from the ground,

it is very hard for elderly up and down, although it is

a wooden floor. (b) it is not only far away from the

entrance, but also surrounded by some partitions, so

the sight is not very good. Elderly can’t see what

happened in other space when they set here.

Compared with DL-1In., we can see that both of

part A and D are south lobby hall. Although D has

comfortable furniture, A is more popular than D.

The reason is that A is near by the main entrance, it

is very convenient, as shown in Fig.8.

Activity room: there are big size and small size

activity rooms in each floor. Although all of them

are north room, those small size rooms are very

popular in elderly persons. The reason is that the

small size room is very suit for 4 to 6 people to use.

The main life activity of elderly is play cards and

one group is 4 to 6 people. This size of space and

this size group is very good for elderly to make

sense of field. So most of the behaviour occurred in

this place is spontaneous communication.

In addition, not only the size of space can

influence elderly persons’ behaviour , but also the

form of space. For example, the space near by the

window is very interesting in this institution, so

elderly like to stay there than any other place in one

room. Although we can’t exclude any other

elements, we can also come to the following

conclusion: interested forms of space and the

appropriate spatial scale can promote elderly

persons’ life behaviors.

REFERENCES

China Aging Development Report [J] 2013.

Zhou Yanmin, 2013. The Ministry of Residential and

Urban. Accessibility Family Construction Guideline

[M].China Architecture & Building Press. Beijing.

Wu Dongmei, Cheng Hongzhi, 1999. Urban Elderly

Living Style and architectural forms study, Harbin

University of Architecture Journal.

Wang Jiangping, 2009. Older people’s Living External

Environmental Planning and Design, China Electric

Power Press. Beijing.

Study on the Relationships between Behaviour Styles and Elderly Livable Space in the North Area of China

APPENDIX

Figure 6: Distribution of aged people facility in Dalian of China.

Figure 7: Summary of respondents.

DCICT4AWE 2016 - Doctoral Consortium on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health