SENIOR MOMENTS: CREATING SUSTAINABLE AND INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENTS FOR AGING-IN-PLACE IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

The growth of increasingly stressful urban cities has taken a toll on the quality of life, through the dilution of culture and the fast-paced lifestyle that comes with the pride of economic progress. Many challenges of urban social life often revolve around the lack of community interaction and social cohesion for support. For the youth of our nation, this may seem like a daunting future for us to grow up in; but for the elderly, this poses an even greater challenge. Although there are many contributing social factors that affects the ability of the elderly to age successfully in urban cities, the built environment that surrounds them daily is the only constant in a world of change. The quality and design of the built environment has great potential to either facilitate the growth of communities to create social support for the elderly or to deny the elderly of interaction and stimulation. 3 Looking to the context of Singapore's built environment, Singapore has endured the challenges of providing the basic needs of residential housing for its citizens during its growing years through several urban planning schemes and building developments. However with societal progress and evolution, the needs of the elderly population and society are no longer as simple. In accordance with Maslow's 'Hierarchy of Needs', once the basic needs of society are met, individuals will crave the need to be satisfied on a psychological level. Therefore, current design solutions and strategies may not address these rising problems as effectively. In light of the challenge of an aging population, this dissertation seeks to distill key indicators for creating a sustainable communities in the built environment to ensure aging-in-place. These indicators act as springboards to analyze the spatial strategies that encourage natural social interaction in communities for the elderly to integrate better in society. Furthermore, by looking at the challenge of aging-in-place with the focus on urban planning perspectives, this dissertation will discuss the triumphs and pitfalls of current urban strategies to tackle the challenges of ageing-in-place, through the exploration of various foreign and local case studies. In conclusion, this discussion explores the potential of alternative collaborative planning strategies and how effective they can be in creating sustainable and inclusive communities for the aged.