Research On Planning And Design Of City "Continuing Care" Elderly Community In China

Along with the constantly growing aging population in China, the social and health care issue of elderly citizens and problems on their residences have been put on the agenda. Improving the living conditions for the aged and providing them constant care have become consensus of the whole society. Because of the social development of China, and the shift of seniors'retirement concept and living desire, the modality of"taking full-time care in community"is gradually recognized by general public. This article, by comparing and analyzing both China's and foreign countries'related theories and developing histories of seniors'communities, combined with the actual situations and cultures in China, bring up an idea of establishing a new elderly community in modern society—"continuing care"elderly community."continuing care"elderly community, also known as a life-care community, is a type of retirement community, which accepts seniors from different family structures and different physical conditions, where residents'age structure is multi-level and home-based care are mainly provided. The community provides residential facilities and services, from independent living, assisted living, to nursing, so that as patrons progress in age, their health condition, self-care ability, and medical needs change, the level of nursing care and service can increase proportionally in response, and seniors can continuously live in the familiar environment and will remain reside there until end of life and realize"age in place".The community adopts the living mode of"solitary living"in large scale and"Live set"in small scale, which introduces the feature of"Live set"of the independent elderly community to establish a small scale "Inhabited cluster" at the community center, which is for some set home pension seniors. The basic environment of mixed elderly community is maintained for most elderly who love home-based care.This thesis, in light of the community design methodolgy, would analyze and discuss the"continuing care elderly community"from two specific parts of planning research and design. Start from analyzing the site, scale, function and planning, the author would carry out the sysmatic researsch on the layout of the"continuing care elderly community". By analyzing the scale control of the"continuing care elderly community", the author would employ an new idea, that people can establish one or two"continuing care elderly community"in a residential community, in order to provide the suitable situations for the senior's"age in place"; then associated with the research on the psychological, physical, behavior characteristics and special needs of the senior residences, the author carried out targeted design studies about senior housing unit suitable for different family composition, different physical conditions and adaptive design studies about senior housing's interior space.At the end of this thesis, the author has offered some suggestions to the development of the"continuing care elderly community".