Placing concepts of sensory gardens as social nodes in Older Adult’s Daycare Centre’s design towards a sustainable community: Surabaya

Abstract

The urban ageing population has become a global issue that affects the world’s population composition, with an increasing proportion of persons aged 65 and older in urban environments. Older adult’s communities, as integral parts of society, can respond to this by achieving active ageing. The term ‘active ageing’ refers to efforts to maximize health, safety, and community participation to enhance the quality of life in line with advancing age. Facilities catering to the older people, such as nursing homes, often do not comprehensively consider the mobility limitations of the older adults when providing accessibility. The human-centered method is employed in the implementation process of a sensory garden at the older adult’s daycare center facility. This method places its focus on deriving solutions for conflicts between the older people group and other groups in the context of connectivity and accessibility, with the objective of creating integration between outdoor spaces and the building mass within the older adult’s daycare center facility. By utilizing the human-centered method, the root causes of accessibility issues and persons aged 65 and elder’s declining abilities can be systematically understood and resolved through a straightforward design intervention, namely the implementation of a centrally located sensory garden that serves as social nodes. Using a centralized spatial organization in the arrangement of the building masses fosters a connected circulation in the form of a linear loop. With a clear sequence, this linear configuration can accommodate ease of visual access and movement. In the built environment with accessibility amenities, it can foster a sustainable older people community. Furthermore, through the holistic implementation of sensory garden arrangements, the older people community can achieve sustainability and optimal productivity.