Transformative Dwellings That Adapt To The Changing Family Life Cycles In Taipei

The goal of this paper is to explore the potential for urban dwellings toadopt flexible compartmentalization instead of fixed partitions, creatingadaptable habitats which enable the occupants the spatial autonomy to adjusttheir living environment to suite the current needs of the family life cycle.The population of the babies born after World War II are marching towardsold age. In Taiwan, the society will become an aged society in2018and turninto a hyper-aged society eleven years from today, where one out of every fivepeople will be a senior, engendering eldercare a reality and priority for Taiwan.The rapidly aging demographics resulted from the rise in senior population anddecline in youth population affect the society on many levels, in particular thefamily structure and the dwelling form. The issue of how to enable familiesand dwellings to effectively handle the dual responsibility of providing agedcare for the old and parenting for the young is not only a sociological but also anarchitectural quest.Taipei is selected as the research basis for this paper due to the fact that theprevailing family structure in Taipei are nuclear families occupying apartmentswith less than three bedrooms, forming a phenomenon of small families living insmall homes. Due to the influence of the M-shape society, the need totransition from nuclear family to three-generation family structure will begin toincrease, and currently there is a deficiency in the amount of dwellings inTaipei suitable for multi-generational occupancy in Taipei.This paper embarks with a collection of various statistical data from thegovernment agencies to derive an understanding of the aging process of theelderly population in Taiwan. By analyzing Taipei’s demographics, familystructure, dwelling and living environment; the foundation for establishing thefamily life cycle and the corresponding spatial needs for each stage of the cycleis consolidated. Chapter III of this paper examines the spatial needs of theelderly people during the aging process, and the inevitable transition fromnuclear families to three-generation families brought by the prevalent practice of providing elderly care at the homes of the younger generations. Chapter IVcontinues to investigate deeper into the programmatic functions of the mainresidential living spaces. Because the youth born in the80s and90s adopt verydifferent thinking patterns and lifestyles than the previous generations, theiroutlook on the physical environment may differ greatly from the provisions ofthe present dwelling form. Chapter V examines residentialcompartmentalization and the adaptability of the partitioning system, hencereturning the ability to alter dwelling layouts to the hands of the occupants byimplementing flexible as opposed to fixed partitions. Chapter VI, in additionto analysis and recommendations on rental accommodation, focuses on ademonstration of elastically altering the interior configuration to accommodatethe needs of each phase of the family life cycle for the nuclear andthree-generation families. The illustration explores the possibility formulti-dimensionality in the living environment and the potential for each spaceto be utilized as currently needed, hence ensuring likelihood of satisfactory andreliable outcome to yield from the research endeavour.This paper is directed towards the housing needs of the future generations.It explores the optimum compartmentalization method between the family andthe dwelling from an architectural standpoint. With the premise being theyounger generations not needing to leave parents’ homes to purchase their ownplaces, this paper searches for a dynamic, adjustable dwelling concept, one inwhich the occupants will no longer have to adapt passively to the pre-defineddwelling layout, but instead let the dwellings adjust to properly serve the actualneeds of the occupants.