In 2015 THE NORDIC INDEPENDENT LIVING CHALLENGE invited proposals to address the issue of senior citizens’ quality of life (http://www.realchallenge.info/). Playontology for Seniors (PlaS) was one of the 415 proposals. On the 10th of April 75 proposals were shortlisted to enter the next stage of the competition. PlaS did not make it; however, since we appreciate the theme of the competition, and value our proposal, we would like to disseminate it.
We can say with relative certainty that if the current demographic trends persist, prolonging seniors’ independent living will be a major challenge for our advanced societies. PlaS acknowledges the systemic changes that are needed if we want to efficiently tackle this challenge. The ableist assumptions that permeate all facets of our lives come to dead-end when we must face the deterioration of our physical, mental and social abilities due to aging. PlaS argues that we need to work holistically on understanding how our cities must evolve to include seniors in creative, humane, and realistic ways. Prolonging seniors’ independent living requires from all stakeholders intentionality and prescience. We, the team behind PlaS, still believe our proposal has potential and we are open to collaboration.
Brief description of proposal
What does it mean for seniors to remain active participants in life & be active agents of change in the Nordic cities with their long winter & brief summer seasons? Our answer (PlaS) is a package of solutions to provide seniors who are living independently & in relative good health, with places+objects that will help them remain or become physically & socially active both outdoors & indoors. We propose solutions that are democratic, that will not only cater to wealthy seniors, & that have a clear focus on seniors but don’t exclude others. We propose to co-design with seniors a demo project of places & objects for exercise via play & light sport activities, both inside buildings, & in public spaces. We propose to design a flexible, open-ended, repeatable, climate sensitive package of solutions of places+objects. We propose a pilot of a series of workshops to create such a package and test it in Helsinki & other Nordic cities. Co-creating these indoor & outdoor solutions will ensure that seniors in particular feel comfortable with them & invite others to use them throughout the year. PlaS will be adjustable for public & for private use, & inspired by the concept of environmental affordance according to which design gestures can draw users to certain activities. The objects would be eco-friendly, based on the principles of reuse & recycle, & creative in unexpected ways (e.g. using ready-mades, recycling electronic components, knit-bombing, creative gardening, etc.).
PlaS relates to the group of seniors who are still in good health and self-sufficient.
· How does PlaS contribute to a more independent life for the target group?
PlaS facilitates seniors who are still independent to be physically & socially active & stay independent longer. We cater to seniors like Ron: ”I have some residual desire to be handsome & sexy, but I am very well aware that the best way to do that is to keep moderately fit & dress in a way that presents me as handsome & sexy. I'm not about to spend hours a day in a gym to get a nice butt or bulging deltoids; I just don't want to have saggy man boobs or bad posture. […] Seeing myself in a wheelchair because I'm too frail to walk, or having annoying personal care attendants because I can't cook my meals or make my bed, would drive home the fact that I can take charge of this to some extent. But people need to be attracted to this vision [of active life] by the affordances & community organization that make it possible. […] If I go to a place where I can experience the joy of playing on a swing & at the same time burn some calories & tighten my abs by lifting & lowering my legs to do the pumping movement, I won't feel demeaned. And I would look forward to being delighted by new designs for fun movements, games, or whatever the experts can come up with. […] I already, at 64, have enough experience of being underestimated & dismissed by people every day […] I think that a play area […] has a place here, & empowers seniors because it should be designed to make us feel we're doing something fun on our own, not being dragged around by someone else to make us cheap to maintain!”
· How is PlaS innovative?
PlaS will allow seniors to stay physically & mentally fit, & socially active, for longer. It will provide solutions of places+objects for activities of communal & independent play in private & in public. Moreover, facilitating seniors to enjoy a more active social life will keep them mentally healthier. Research demonstrates that while keeping seniors physically & socially active has been proven to be paramount for their well-being, the efforts made & the resources invested are short-sighted, fragmented, & don’t gain public support. Botero & Hyysalo (2015) demonstrate that seniors must be engaged in every step in the planning of services that would facilitate their wellbeing, & they speak of co-designing processes & long-term commitments. Menec et al. (2009) demonstrate that to lessen health risks for seniors & to prolong their independent living there is a need to provide related resources in & around the buildings where they live. Finally, Phelan et al. (2004: 215) did research validating that “… older adults’ perceptions of successful aging are multidimensional, involving beliefs about physical, functional, social, & psychological health.” While experts almost never deal with all these factors, PlaS will deal with all four of them. Together with seniors we will co-design solutions of places+objects. PlaS will include indoor & outdoor design solutions, & make use of existing methods & technologies in climate sensitive, environmental art & design, recreation & aging.
· How does PlaS differ from already available solutions?
It has been evident since the mid 2000s that Finland has been a leader in research & development of facilities that address seniors’ wellbeing through sports. Companies such as LAPPSET have produced playgrounds for seniors. Such solutions though haven’t caught on & haven’t spread as much as they should have in the last 15 years. In general playgrounds for seniors exist mainly in Japan (where authorities have been proactive), in North America, but also in Spain, UK, Germany & Brazil. We think that playgrounds for seniors have not proven to be as popular as they could have been because of the wrong mind-set they engender. They are not part of a strategy; seniors are dealt with as end-users & not as stakeholders in the design process. Furthermore, playgrounds might be seen as patronizing and/or demeaning to seniors; popular culture links playgrounds with children & returning to childhood may be perceived as a regression into infancy and dependency. PlaS proposes a climate sensitive, sustainable, & empowering co-design process with seniors, which will start from defining the issues we need to address, all the way to testing and evaluating prototypes in real time-space. PlaS encompasses seniors’ existing housing (common corridors and corners, community rooms, walls, door handles, bathrooms, etc.), the outdoors next to senior’s housing, & existing public spaces (using various surfaces, parks, squares, public buildings, sidewalks, existing public furniture, waterfronts, etc.).
Literature resources and inspiration:
Verena H. Menec, Dawn M. Veselyuk, Audrey A. Blandford and Scott Nowicki (2009) Availability of Activity-related Resources in Senior Apartments: Does it Differ by Neighbourhood Socio-economic Status? Ageing and Society, 29: 397-411 doi:10.1017/S0144686X08007939
Andrea Botero & Sampsa Hyysalo (2013) Ageing Together: Steps towards Evolutionary Co-design in Everyday Practices, CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts, 9:1, 37-54, DOI: 10.1080/15710882.2012.760608
Elizabeth A. Phelan, Lynda A. Anderson, Andrea Z. LaCroix, and Eric B. Larson (2004) Older Adults’ Views of ‘‘Successful Aging’’- How Do They Compare with Researchers’ Definitions? Journal of American Geriatrics Society, 52: 211–216.
Ulla Westerberg (2009) The Significance of Climate for the Use of Urban Outdoor
Spaces: Some Results from Case Studies in two Nordic Cities. International Journal of Architectural Research, 3(1): 131-144.
Ingegärd Eliasson, Igor Knez, Ulla Westerberg, Sofia Thorsson, and Fredrik Lindberg (2007) Climate and behaviour in a Nordic city. Landscape and Urban Planning, 82: 72–84.
http://www.nifplay.org/
https://playgroundology.wordpress.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4691088.stm
http://www.athleticbusiness.com/fitness-training/playgrounds-for-seniors-popular-in-europe-asia-and-north-america.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/video-toronto-beach-huts/article23132176/
What does it mean for seniors to remain active participants in life & be active agents of change in the Nordic cities with their long winter & brief summer seasons? Our answer (PlaS) is a package of solutions to provide seniors who are living independently & in relative good health, with places+objects that will help them remain or become physically & socially active both outdoors & indoors. We propose solutions that are democratic, that will not only cater to wealthy seniors, & that have a clear focus on seniors but don’t exclude others. We propose to co-design with seniors a demo project of places & objects for exercise via play & light sport activities, both inside buildings, & in public spaces. We propose to design a flexible, open-ended, repeatable, climate sensitive package of solutions of places+objects. We propose a pilot of a series of workshops to create such a package and test it in Helsinki & other Nordic cities. Co-creating these indoor & outdoor solutions will ensure that seniors in particular feel comfortable with them & invite others to use them throughout the year. PlaS will be adjustable for public & for private use, & inspired by the concept of environmental affordance according to which design gestures can draw users to certain activities. The objects would be eco-friendly, based on the principles of reuse & recycle, & creative in unexpected ways (e.g. using ready-mades, recycling electronic components, knit-bombing, creative gardening, etc.).
PlaS relates to the group of seniors who are still in good health and self-sufficient.
· How does PlaS contribute to a more independent life for the target group?
PlaS facilitates seniors who are still independent to be physically & socially active & stay independent longer. We cater to seniors like Ron: ”I have some residual desire to be handsome & sexy, but I am very well aware that the best way to do that is to keep moderately fit & dress in a way that presents me as handsome & sexy. I'm not about to spend hours a day in a gym to get a nice butt or bulging deltoids; I just don't want to have saggy man boobs or bad posture. […] Seeing myself in a wheelchair because I'm too frail to walk, or having annoying personal care attendants because I can't cook my meals or make my bed, would drive home the fact that I can take charge of this to some extent. But people need to be attracted to this vision [of active life] by the affordances & community organization that make it possible. […] If I go to a place where I can experience the joy of playing on a swing & at the same time burn some calories & tighten my abs by lifting & lowering my legs to do the pumping movement, I won't feel demeaned. And I would look forward to being delighted by new designs for fun movements, games, or whatever the experts can come up with. […] I already, at 64, have enough experience of being underestimated & dismissed by people every day […] I think that a play area […] has a place here, & empowers seniors because it should be designed to make us feel we're doing something fun on our own, not being dragged around by someone else to make us cheap to maintain!”
· How is PlaS innovative?
PlaS will allow seniors to stay physically & mentally fit, & socially active, for longer. It will provide solutions of places+objects for activities of communal & independent play in private & in public. Moreover, facilitating seniors to enjoy a more active social life will keep them mentally healthier. Research demonstrates that while keeping seniors physically & socially active has been proven to be paramount for their well-being, the efforts made & the resources invested are short-sighted, fragmented, & don’t gain public support. Botero & Hyysalo (2015) demonstrate that seniors must be engaged in every step in the planning of services that would facilitate their wellbeing, & they speak of co-designing processes & long-term commitments. Menec et al. (2009) demonstrate that to lessen health risks for seniors & to prolong their independent living there is a need to provide related resources in & around the buildings where they live. Finally, Phelan et al. (2004: 215) did research validating that “… older adults’ perceptions of successful aging are multidimensional, involving beliefs about physical, functional, social, & psychological health.” While experts almost never deal with all these factors, PlaS will deal with all four of them. Together with seniors we will co-design solutions of places+objects. PlaS will include indoor & outdoor design solutions, & make use of existing methods & technologies in climate sensitive, environmental art & design, recreation & aging.
· How does PlaS differ from already available solutions?
It has been evident since the mid 2000s that Finland has been a leader in research & development of facilities that address seniors’ wellbeing through sports. Companies such as LAPPSET have produced playgrounds for seniors. Such solutions though haven’t caught on & haven’t spread as much as they should have in the last 15 years. In general playgrounds for seniors exist mainly in Japan (where authorities have been proactive), in North America, but also in Spain, UK, Germany & Brazil. We think that playgrounds for seniors have not proven to be as popular as they could have been because of the wrong mind-set they engender. They are not part of a strategy; seniors are dealt with as end-users & not as stakeholders in the design process. Furthermore, playgrounds might be seen as patronizing and/or demeaning to seniors; popular culture links playgrounds with children & returning to childhood may be perceived as a regression into infancy and dependency. PlaS proposes a climate sensitive, sustainable, & empowering co-design process with seniors, which will start from defining the issues we need to address, all the way to testing and evaluating prototypes in real time-space. PlaS encompasses seniors’ existing housing (common corridors and corners, community rooms, walls, door handles, bathrooms, etc.), the outdoors next to senior’s housing, & existing public spaces (using various surfaces, parks, squares, public buildings, sidewalks, existing public furniture, waterfronts, etc.).
Literature resources and inspiration:
Verena H. Menec, Dawn M. Veselyuk, Audrey A. Blandford and Scott Nowicki (2009) Availability of Activity-related Resources in Senior Apartments: Does it Differ by Neighbourhood Socio-economic Status? Ageing and Society, 29: 397-411 doi:10.1017/S0144686X08007939
Andrea Botero & Sampsa Hyysalo (2013) Ageing Together: Steps towards Evolutionary Co-design in Everyday Practices, CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts, 9:1, 37-54, DOI: 10.1080/15710882.2012.760608
Elizabeth A. Phelan, Lynda A. Anderson, Andrea Z. LaCroix, and Eric B. Larson (2004) Older Adults’ Views of ‘‘Successful Aging’’- How Do They Compare with Researchers’ Definitions? Journal of American Geriatrics Society, 52: 211–216.
Ulla Westerberg (2009) The Significance of Climate for the Use of Urban Outdoor
Spaces: Some Results from Case Studies in two Nordic Cities. International Journal of Architectural Research, 3(1): 131-144.
Ingegärd Eliasson, Igor Knez, Ulla Westerberg, Sofia Thorsson, and Fredrik Lindberg (2007) Climate and behaviour in a Nordic city. Landscape and Urban Planning, 82: 72–84.
http://www.nifplay.org/
https://playgroundology.wordpress.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4691088.stm
http://www.athleticbusiness.com/fitness-training/playgrounds-for-seniors-popular-in-europe-asia-and-north-america.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/video-toronto-beach-huts/article23132176/
