The Swedish Social Services Act (SFS 2001:453) stipulates since 1982 that the municipal Social Committee should become well acquainted with the living conditions in the municipality. They should also participate in urban planning, and in cooperation with other public bodies, organizations, associations and individuals promote good living environments in the municipality. The development, planning and design of good living environments for older people is an endeavour of great complexity that demands collaboration between many actors. Housing and care for older people is an important area in which social servicesand urban planning could benefit from collaboration. Planning for older people has recently been indicated as urgent and necessary, especially in the light of changed demography in which the proportion of older people is increasing. A built environment that accommodates older people’s everyday needs embraces issues such as age-friendliness, care, socio-spatial inequality, inclusion, and innovation. This research program, CollAge, investigates cross-sectoral collaboration in Swedish municipalities between social eldercare, urban planning and Senior Citizens’ Councils as regards housing and care. With diverse qualitative methodologies the multidisciplinary team of scholars in social work, architecture and urban planning  explore how eldercare interventions and services are managed and understood in municipal urban planning and development, and how older people’s preferences can contribute to improved quality of care in social services and housing provision.  The ultimate aim of the programme is to develop a methodological tool – CollAge – to support, facilitate and structure collaboration between the three actors.

This article examines the space–time situatedness of residing within extra-care housing (ECH) in Sweden. EHC constitutes an example of ordinary housing but is often categorized, along with senior housing, as “in-between housing.” What differentiates the extra-care housing from the ordinary is an age limit for moving in, the provision of communal facilities, and the presence of staff at certain times each week. Two housings with different environmental and architectural conditions have been analyzed through spatial analyses, observations, and interviews with residents (n = 18). The article concludes that the two different assemblings enabled two very different possibilities for accessing “safe aging.” One offered opportunities for the continuation of identities which contributed to feelings of safety, and one demanded the reconstitution of identities for developing meaning in the new housing.

Background: Physical activity is often described as being important for people of all ages, but what different people mean when they talk about physical activity is unclear. Method: A phenomenographic method was used to analyze how 13 older people and 17 professionals answer the question, “If I say physical activity, what does the concept mean to you?” as part of semi-structured interviews conducted in four assisted living facilities in two different municipalities. Results: We identified a number of different perceptions of physical activity, with the older people and professionals having different responses. Elderly and professionals alike, define physical activity as a requirement for life and as an opportunity to maintain the body although they define the concepts in different ways. Elderly define the concept as a way to create meaning and the professionals have the attitude that the concept means everyday activities. Conclusion: The concept of physical activity may be defined in many different ways. This study has shown that elderly and professionals do not define physical activity in the same way. Therefore, professionals need to be aware of these differences when talking with elderly about individual needs in everyday life.

This qualitative study presents how intergenerational relationships have spatially shaped the former apartheid township Kuisebmond in Walvis Bay, Namibia. The apartheid housing, which was designed for nuclear families, now accommodates multiple generations. People in different age cohorts are distributed differently in space. People in late later life lived in the former township housing units, whilst people in early later life lived in backyard shacks or other rentals. Certain patterns of cohabitation with younger relatives were discernible. It is highly likely that the extended family will be an important facet of Namibian urban life in the foreseeable future, since traditional family patterns have been interpreted in an urbanised form. It is of great importance that housing can accommodate various versions of the extended family, necessary for family existence and intergenerational obligations of resource pooling. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Objective

Free choice in elderly care services is a debated issue. Using the theoretical support of philosophers of free will, this paper explores free choice in relocation to residential care. The three dominant perspectives within this field of philosophy, libertarianism, determinism and compatibilism, are applied from the perspective of the older individual to the process of moving.

Method

Empirical data were collected through qualitative interviews with 13 older individuals who had recently moved into residential care.

Results

These individuals had made the choice to move following either a health emergency or incremental health problems. In a deterministic perspective they had no alternative to moving, which was the inevitable solution to their various personal problems. A network of people important to them assisted in the move, making the choice possible. However, post-move the interviewees' perspective had changed to a libertarian or compatibilist interpretation, whereby although the circumstances had conferred little freedom regarding the move.

Conclusions

The interviewees reported a high degree of self-determination in the process. It appeared that in order to restore self-respect and personal agency, the older individuals had transformed their restricted choice into a choice made of free will or freer will.

This ethnographic study explores an old age home in a former township in Walvis Bay, Namibia as an institution to investigate its potential to be interwoven in community care services for older adults. Interviews with older adults from the community revealed highly negative opinions about the residence that equated it to an institution. These opinions are compared with conditions in the OAH and the residents’ views. The old age home was much more heterogenous as regards the composition of residents than what was perceived by older adults who lived in the community, who considered the home an option only for people who were childless or had been abandoned. Older adults who voluntarily lived alone in the home represented a new lifestyle that challenged the traditional family care practice that is the norm in later life. There was however some truth to the interviewees’ perceptions of coercive elements, both in terms of practices and architectural design. The paper argues that it is necessary to reduce the stigma that prevents residential care from being an accepted part of community care and a housing option in the future. The study result shows a number of potentialities that can contribute to this. © 2021 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This is a qualitative case study of care work in a liminal space, specifically the case of an extra-care housing residence, which is an innovative housing alternative for elderly people in need of care in Sweden. The study is an exploration of social care workers' perceptions about their workplaces and their understandings of themselves, which are shaped by their embeddedness in architectural space. The extra-care housing residence appeared as a liminal space in which two dominant spaces – home care services and residential care – underpinned the staff's perceptions of an unclear workplace and their identity work. © 2021 The Author

This qualitative ethnographic study presents how intergenerational relationships have shaped the architecture of housing in the former apartheid township Kuisebmond in Walvis Bay, Namibia. The township housing, which was designed for nuclear families, now accommodates multiple generations. The original, small, single-family dwellings have become family houses by horizontal additions and extensions. The plots are often skilfully developed according to the families’ needs. In some cases, they have become impressive buildings, housing many individuals. Since formal housing provision has not been able to keep pace with urbanisation, informal housing has been constructed in the form of backyard shacks on the plots of the former township dwellings. These often mimic the former township housing units, albeit on a very small scale. Formal housing, reconstructed or not, together with backyard shacks, constitutes a social geography of intergenerational relations of the extended family. This pattern of urban restructuring affords a scaffolding for extended family needs and an architecture of resistance to apartheid social engineering. The paper reveals an important lesson for housing providers, which is intended as a critical commentary on the persistent tendency of present-day government to continue with the formula of mass-housing with spatially limited single-family dwellings as the former township houses. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The relationship between architectural space and resident-centred care is poorly understood, even though architectural space is indicated as an important factor in the quality of care. This paper aims to address this gap in existing research by putting resident-centred care in the theoretical context of relationality and emergence in which space is a co-producing component. This qualitative case study includes two housing alternatives, which are compared: one assisted living and one extra-care housing residence, which differ in their legal status and architecturally. Similar fieldwork was carried out in the two residences. Individual interviews with staff and residents, as well as observations—direct and shadowing—were the main data collection methods. The concept of assemblage was used for the analysis of how resident-centred care and architectural space co-evolved. The findings show that resident-centred care appears in similar but also diverse and sometimes contradictory ways in different spaces in the two housing alternatives, suggesting that resident-centred care is situated, volatile and emergent. Although architecture has strong agency, space and care need to be considered together—a caring architecture—in order to understand the nuances and rich conceptual palette of resident-centred care. © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This qualitative intuitive inquiry into residential care in Sweden discusses effects of social and spatial connections and disconnections during the Covid-19 pandemic. Interviews were carried out with 11 residents living in three residential care homes. Observations and spatial analyses complemented the interviews. The study investigated residents’ experience of the altered use of architectural space during the different phases of the coronavirus pandemic. Restrictions comprised, in general, that public areas were emptied, while residents were confined to their private apartments 24 hours a day. This created an entirely different caring architecture and challenged the usual care model of community. However, many residents said that staying in their apartments around the clock was an experience that was very similar to ordinary days in residential care, since they normally stayed long hours in their apartments. However, the residents’ disconnection from local information about the disease created a situation of great ambiguity and uncertainty about the progress of the pandemic and the state of the disease in the home. The interviewees claimed nevertheless that they had not been particularly worried about the situation. They had continued with normal leisure activities to make the time pass. It seems as though the disconnection from most of the spaces outside their apartments, as well as from staff, family and fellow residents, made it possible for them to disconnect themselves from awareness of the dangers of the disease caused by Covid-19. © 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The number of African older people who live permanently in urban areas is growing. This qualitative ethnographic study explores how older people employ welfare strategies, often involving members of the extended family in mutual care and support. These welfare strategies are emplaced; in this case, in different housing types in a former township in Namibia - Kuisebmond in Walvis Bay. Older people stay in former township houses, in backyard shacks or other rentals, or at an old-age home. Government welfare that was adjusted to family needs appeared in similar shapes in these housing types, such as access to better schools. Older people were both caregivers and receivers of care in these efforts. Taking care of grandchildren while their parents migrated for work was a mutuality of informal support that was highly beneficial to all involved. The non-contributory pensions facilitated many strategies by alleviating risks. Access to high quality housing and government healthcare made urban living a feasible alternative that challenged rural living. The study concludes that housing is a strategic welfare space where formal and informal welfare are optimised in various ways. Older individuals contribute to a large extent to the adjustment, maintenance, and development of these joint spaces.

It is often assumed that sub-Saharan African urban migrants return in later life to the villages from which they originated. This article challenges this model of circular migration by exploring the strategies of older adults who live permanently in urban areas. The empirical material comes from ethnographic case studies in two industrial towns formed by the apartheid and colonial housing policies of the 1950s and 1960s: Kuisebmond in Walvis Bay, Namibia, a former apartheid ‘location’; and Walukuba in Jinja, Uganda, a former ‘African’ rental estate. Older adults’ housing situation and its significance for their strategies and choices in later life provide the focus. The results show that even if many strategies appeared that are often associated with a return to the rural place of origin, for many the move back to the village was not a viable option. Participants in the study nurtured contacts with their places of origin, for example by making regular visits, sending remittances, contributing to housing in the village and receiving relatives in town. It is argued that these strategies, together with urban advantages–in particular a good housing situation–must be understood as translocal optimisation, in which potentialities emerge from an assemblage of various actors in different, connected locales. The optimal situation in which to age–in rural or urban areas–is a product of co-emergent actors and not necessarily an individual choice on the part of the older adult. The study concludes that urban living in later life seems to be an alternative choice for a group of older adults and must be acknowledged. © 2020, © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Architecture is hard stuff. It is formed by walls, roofs, floors, all components of hard materials, stone, glass and wood. It distributes people in space and directs their doings and movements. Institutions are even harder stuff. Order is pushed a step further by the coerciveness of discursive architectural models and caring practices, restricting options to certain ways of thinking and acting. This book sets out to illuminate how people and spaces negotiate, and often challenge, regularities and patterns embedded in the meeting between architecture and institutions. It contains a number of essays by authors from disciplines such as human geography, architecture, planning, design, social work and education. The essays discuss different examples from institutions in which care is carried out; assisted living facilities, residential care for children, psychiatric care facilities and hospitals. By adopting a non-representational perspective, emergent practices render visible capacities of being flexible and mouldable, in which institutional architecture is defied, contested and transformed. New situations appear which transgress physical space in partnership with those who populate it, whether humans or non-humans. This book reveals the relational and transformative conditions of care architecture and the way in which institutions transform (or not) into Caring Architecture.

In Sweden, as in many other countries, students that schools are unable to handle are removed from their local environments and sometimes from their parental homes and moved to rural residential care homes. Although ‘home’ and ‘school’ are clearly considered places where problems exist, it is not these places that are scrutinised and subjected to change, but the students. How do the change of place and the performance of the alternative ‘home’ and alternative ‘school’ contribute to the students’ adjustment? In this article we explore the significance of place in these measures and ask questions about how possibilities for agency and subjectivities are produced.  The article is based on an ethnographic study of two residential care homes for troubled youth, aged 12 to 15. The results show how complex assemblages produce opportunities and limitations for care and education and how location and buildings partake in the constitution of possible subjectivities and agency. The analysis inspired by Actor-Network Theory (ANT) can capture mobility and flow, an important aspect when studying complexity. This kind of analysis enables a study of the complex arrangements for disadvantaged youth that takes into consideration not just social interactions but also materiality.