Seniors’ housing

23.092020

Furniture

1st evolutionary housing designed by and for seniors.

“Seniors should no longer have to adapt to their homes: it is up to the home to adapt to the evolution of their lifestyles. It was with this in mind that the members of a consortium of companies decided to completely rethink their way of designing housing, bound by a common desire to “offer evolving housing that adapts to the diversity of older people and to changes in their lifestyles.“

Habitat Seniors is the first project to be carried out as a “co-innovation for and in use”, bringing together 13 complementary companies in the home improvement sector, led by FCBA. Innovation project management methodologies based on real uses and for future uses were developed in partnership with the Paragraphe Laboratory of the University of Paris VIII. This project was entirely financed by this consortium of housing companies.

Challenging traditional views of housing design, the housing design process has been completely rethought, emphasising “the know-how of all its stakeholders and the involvement of users”.

From the outset, some thirty senior citizens, their medical and family carers and their relatives were involved in order to show them their real uses and co-design innovative solutions adapted to their lifestyles.

Enjeux et objectifs :

The challenges linked to the ageing of the population and the growing need for home care were at the origin of a learning and innovative approach combining the expertise and views of all the stakeholders:

For industrial partners, Habitat Seniors allows them to question their solutions with regard to the lifestyles of seniors, to review their production methods, to reconsider their processes and to engage in unprecedented inter-company collaboration.

On the users’ side, participatory observation and co-design of solutions enable them to become actors in the project. They are equipped to pass on their current uses to the manufacturers and to develop with them relevant solutions for their future uses. By making the most of their expertise, Habitat Seniors is a way of making seniors actors in their environment.

The results (key or telling figures, benefits for the company, perspectives opened by this project...) :

SENIOR HOUSING Habitat Seniors is a leading social project that has led to the development of 11 product and service innovations in various industrial sectors, some of which have led to co-patents. Beyond their uses for seniors, the solutions resulting from this approach have transgenerational applications and thus show the interest of a design approach "for all and for each". These innovations have given rise to a first concrete example: a prototype flat located in the Les Senioriales residence in Emerainville. In this space, there are no more walls, but movable partitions allowing the volumes of the different rooms to be transformed in less than 3 hours. Each use of the seniors is reflected in the integrated equipment whose modularity has been anticipated.