| Title |
Communal Elderly Housing as a Healing Environment |
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.14774/JKIID.2026.35.5.135 |
| Keywords |
Elderly Care Facility; Healing Environment; Anthroposophic Architecture; Supportive Design; Multi-sensory Environment; Integrated Dwelling |
| Abstract |
This study diagnoses the problems of institutionalization and sensory poverty in Korean long-term care facilities for the elderly, which have become pressing as the country entered a super-aged society in December 2024, and analyzes the spatial characteristics of Nikolaus-Cusanus-Haus in Stuttgart-Birkach, Germany, a communal elderly housing facility grounded in anthroposophy, as an alternative frame of reference. Previous domestic studies have approached elderly care environments either from functional and safety-oriented perspectives such as universal design, dementia-friendly environments and unit care, or from the perspective of operational reform such as the culture-change model and the dementia-village concept. Building on but departing from both, this study establishes an analytical framework for a multi-sensory healing environment by combining Roger Ulrich’s theory of supportive design with the sensory design principles of anthroposophic architecture, using the latter not as a metaphysical premise but as a repertoire of spatial operations. On the basis of literature, official documents, floor plans and on-site photographs, the analysis identifies five healing characteristics. First, a central atrium covered by a glass roof, in which tropical plants grow and a watercourse flows, provides positive distraction through nature. Second, the deliberate refusal to separate the 131 residential places from the 139 care places secures continuity of life and dignity, since residents are not required to move when their care needs change. Third, a circulation system consisting only of branches and circular routes, without dead ends, supports dementia-friendly wayfinding. Fourth, proportions ordered by the golden section, ceiling heights ten centimetres above the conventional standard, differentiated qualities of daylight, warm timber finishes and a colour scheme varied floor by floor achieve sensory attunement. Fifth, a festival hall, chapel, workshops and restaurant open to the surrounding community form a stage for social support. On the basis of these findings, this study proposes four directions for spatial improvement in Korean facilities: a hierarchy of sensory stimulation, reorganization toward integrated dwelling, the introduction of circular circulation together with secured privacy, and the internalization of communal and cultural space. |