Ideal Living Space for the Elderly

Chan, Erik Khun Kit (2020) Ideal Living Space for the Elderly. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Ageing population is a global phenomenon experienced by developed and developing countries which include Malaysia. This research was carried out to determine the ideal living space for the elderly in Kota Kinabalu which then explore the trend and issues regarding the ageing population and look into the types of housing option for aged people available in Malaysia. The design and construction of housing was based on the elderly needs and housing attributes preferred by aged people. Hence, it was designed to accommodate the needs, desires and vital requirement of the elderly. Quantitative method was adopted in the primary data collection which involves questionnaire survey through online and hardcopy delivery. The target group for this survey were aged people who are 60 years old and above in Kota Kinabalu with 232 responses that were obtained eventually. The results revealed that the importance of human needs for aged people and the most important housing attributes. Besides that, the correlation test had shown that there was a weak relationship between human needs and various housing attributes. Therefore, this information would provide a new approach for developers, architects or designers to plan and design an appropriate senior living housing in the future based on aged people’s geriatric needs. The limitations of this research were the relatively small sample size which do not cover the other districts in Kota Kinabalu, low response rate, as well as time and cost constraints. Thus, recommendations were given for future research to the increase of sample size, good time management and integrate more effective data collection method. For the next research topic, it was suggested to consider the potential of vertical living for the aged people to age in place.