Project - 'Social specifications' for residential facilities for disabled citizens

Project start March 2015. Completion May 2015.

How can new housing for the disabled be designed in a way that will bring the residents together, integrate the resources of the local community and enhance the quality of life of the residents?

The purpose of the project was to formulate a number of 'social specifications' for new sheltered accommodation for mentally handicapped people in Aalborg in Denmark. The social specifications had to be incorporated into the design of the sheltered accommodation on equal footing with the technical specifications to create the optimal framework for social interaction between the residents, interaction with the local community and enhanced quality of life for the residents, their relatives and the care professionals.

Danish Technological Institute:

• Studied the requirements, resources and life situations of the residents, relatives and care professionals through focus group interviews, workshops and anthropological field studies.
• Explored the local community to understand the surroundings in which the housing facilities were being integrated and discover hidden resources that could be incorporated into the everyday of the sheltered accommodation when it was finished.
• Formulated a number of concrete specific specifications for the sheltered accommodation based on the 'preliminary social analyses'.

Participants

• Municipality of Aalborg – Department of Care of for the Elderly and Handicapped
• AB Himmerland
• Danish Technological Institute, Policy and Business Development, Karsten Frøhlich Hougaard, Annemarie Holsbo.