Abstract
As society ages, the building stock needs to be upgraded. A proper Ambient/Active Assisted Living (AAL) implementation needs a holistic approach; consequently, the environment itself needs to be adapted to the new needs of its inhabitants. Spatially and functionally, homes, and generally the built environment, may not meet the requirements of the elderly anymore. Demographic changes and the effects of an aging society also affect buildings and the built environment. Rapid refurbishment processes, quick adaptation protocols, and appropriate maintenance procedures become a necessity in order to not disturb the elderly and provide them with comfortable and functional homes and spaces. This is the main motivation behind the message of this chapter, which deals with the issue of how to adapt the living built environment for the elderly by use of fast and unobtrusive procedures. Moreover, a method for the assessment of strategies for built environment upgrading for AAL (BeuAAL) in early stages is presented. This chapter will help encouraging several stakeholders to accomplish building renovations for the elderly using robotics and automated tools.
As society ages, the building stock needs to be upgraded. A proper Ambient/Active Assisted Living (AAL) implementation needs a holistic approach; consequently, the environment itself needs to be adapted to the new needs of its inhabitants. Spatially and functionally, homes, and generally the built environment, may not meet the requirements of the elderly anymore. Demographic changes and the effects of an aging society also affect buildings and the built environment. Rapid refurbishment processes, quick adaptation protocols, and appropriate maintenance procedures become a necessity in order to not disturb the elderly and provide them with comfortable and functional homes and spaces. This is the main motivation behind the message of this chapter, which deals with the issue of how to adapt the living built environment for the elderly by use of fast and unobtrusive procedures. Moreover, a method for the assessment of strategies for built environment upgrading for AAL (BeuAAL) in early stages is presented. This chapter will help encouraging several stakeholders to accomplish building renovations for the elderly using robotics and automated tools.
3.1 Why Upgrade Existing Buildings and Homes for the Elderly?
The old built environment in an aging society is an issue that developed countries need to face. Decreases in population diminish the building market’s potential, and especially in the real estate sector, the market is not as vigorous as when the population is growing and the main household types are families with children [98]. Currently, in developed countries, it is not as feasible to erect new buildings when compared to economically more expansive periods. However, it is also true that on average, older society members need more surface area per person to cover their requirements [99]. Two main issues will be dealt with next. First, an elderly person is more comfortable when living in a known environment, where the spatial ambience can easily be recognized (see Section 3.1.1). Second, research shows that renovation is a better choice than implementing a new building policy due to environmental issues such as land artificialization, material consumption, and recyclability (see Section 3.1.2).
3.1.1 Aging in Place
Research [100] shows that people late in life feel more comfortable, self-confident, better oriented, and less lonely if they remained where they lived as seniors, or at least lived in a place of their choosing. If there is a substantial change to an elderly person’s living space, and especially if he or she doesn’t accept it, the chances of quality of life deterioration and loss of health increase. It is better for the elderly to choose their built environment, or at least the residence, around which they feel most comfortable. But what if this built environment is not functional anymore for this person? Getting older might force a change in the elderly person’s living scenario and sometimes require urgent responses. In some cases, the responses are minor modifications. Other times, major changes are necessary; an entire bathroom might need to be changed because it’s not functional for the elderly user.
Normally, in terms of operability, the elderly need bigger bedrooms, bigger bathrooms, and adapted kitchens. However, on the other hand, compared to other types of households, lesser area is needed, because fewer residents live there. It seems obvious that a home conceived for hosting a traditional family with parents and children is not suitable for one or two people anymore. Though, especially in dense urban areas [101], there are economic feasibility issues for aging in place. When people get older and retire from their jobs, the pension they receive might not be enough to keep and maintain their former homes. In some cases, the elderly person might live alone. There are several options for maintaining the operative costs of the building and efficiently using a smaller income after retirement:
If the housing market where the elderly person lives is expansive, or at least active, “reusing” and “reoccupying” the owner-occupied property is a good option [102].
Currently, especially in big urban areas, the possibility of hosting a young person within the elderly house as a guest is a viable option.
Cohousing for the elderly where people share part or the entire living space.
The first two options are good in an urban environment and when the real estate market demands new built surfaces. But if we are talking about rural regions where new home construction is not in demand, then some other options, such as cohousing, would be more appropriate.
Are building typologies and layouts adapted to these new ways of hosting elderly people? Is it easy to adapt a home in order to reach and meet the needs of the inhabitants? How could a home be adapted in a bespoke manner to meet the demands of the changing health conditions of the elderly? These questions will be answered in this chapter.
3.1.2 Environmental Issues Regarding Renovation
According to [103], renovating and refurbishing a building is more efficient compared to constructing a new one if we consider environmental issues. The main parameters are:
Lower energy consumption. Building requires human activity that consumes more energy. However, building renovation needs much less energy than tearing down buildings and erecting new ones.
Lower material consumption. A significant building renovation needs 60 percent less material than erecting a building with the same volume and surface area.
Renovating is often more feasible than demolition and erection of a new building [104].
Therefore, some public administrations, such as the European Commission [105], are promoting building renovation as opposed to the policy of tearing down buildings and erecting new ones.
3.2 Parameters for a Comfortable AAL Built Environment
Advanced societies are following the trend of adapting their existing built facilities, cities, and infrastructures for better elderly life. Not only is the population getting older, but also the places where they used to live are no longer appropriate [107]. Many buildings, especially the ones built during the postwar era (Figure 3.1), were designed and erected following the criteria, regulation, economic feasibility, and household needs of that period. According to the main characteristics of the building stock [108], the problems that buildings and homes face regarding the senior population are:
Inadequate thermal conditions. Elderly people are affected more by extreme weather conditions.
Inadequate acoustic conditions. Noise in urban areas has increased compared to the postwar era, and the elderly suffer more as a result.
Inaccessible spaces. In the postwar era there was often a lack of elevators and doorways with dimensions too narrow for a handicapped person. Kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms were not adapted.
Improper lighting conditions resulting in an excess or lack of illumination.
Unpleasantness of the built environment, where contact with vegetation is limited and social interaction is not possible.
These functional aspects of homes are not only for AAL implementation cases, but apply to general homes and buildings as well. Currently, the regulation and needs have become tighter than in the postwar era. However, the implementation of regulation is limited, but normally not compulsory. Economic feasibility is the main problem when upgrading buildings. It might be impossible to adapt some buildings as necessary due to technical and/or economic limitations.
Figure 3.1 (left) Postwar era buildings, in particular, need to be upgraded for AAL implementation. In the Zenn project [106], manual procedures of refurbishment were undertaken (right) and the results are satisfactory according to the building users (Image by Debegesa).
Currently, and especially in the European Union, there are a number of research projects dealing with the optimization of renovation of existing buildings [105]. The majority of building renovation is focused on reducing energy consumption, i.e., one of the goals to achieve for the optimal AAL scenario. However, it´s not the only one; there are several other parameters to consider, as previously mentioned. Some of the parameters for a comfortable built environment will be further explained in the next section.
3.2.1 Thermal Comfort and Almost Zero Energy Consumption of the Built Environment
The elderly sometimes stay less socially active than the young [109]. Therefore, their homes and houses need to be thermally comfortable in order to avoid acquiring diseases related to high or low temperatures [110]. There are several ongoing public policies for adapting existing building stocks into thermally comfortable buildings that use very low energy [105]. For instance, the European Commission has set an objective for the year 2050: to minimize the energy consumption of buildings to nearly zero. The measures for reaching a nearly zero energy consumption in an existing building are diverse:
Placing a highly insulating layer in the building envelope.
Installing air-tight ventilation systems, mainly for cold temperatures. The outdoor–indoor air streams need to be prevented to keep a building thermally comfortable.
Installing heat-recovery systems to ventilate an indoor space without losing heat.
Installing new and efficient ventilations systems for heating and cooling.
Installing energy collecting systems such as solar cells, water heating systems, and similar devices.
Utilizing Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in building envelopes.
How can these advanced building skins and devices be installed in a rapid manner? Traditional installing techniques are long processes. As explained in Section 3.3, the unobtrusiveness of any kind of building renovation must always be considered when working on homes for the elderly. Besides passive measures for building renovation, there have been recent developments in the automated control of thermal energy and its storage [111] [112].
3.2.2 Acoustically Comfortable Built Environment
As already mentioned in Chapter 2, the elderly tend to stay at home, and it is therefore important that these spaces are noise-free, since the elderly are more sensitive to unpleasant noise than the rest of the population. On the one side, the health condition of the elderly can be directly affected by noise; a noisy environment can increase the risk of stroke or other health problems [113]. On the other side, environmental perception can be disturbed by high noise. Therefore, the elderly cannot hear properly, especially at high frequencies, as mentioned in Section 2.3.7, which can contribute spatial disorientation.
Figure 3.2 Prefabricated solutions for building thermal upgrading with services. BERTIM project [112]. The modules have a registrable part (left) at the point where services are connected to the interior of the existing building (center). These concepts were demonstrated in the Kubik building (right).
In a home, there are two sources of noise: outdoor and indoor. On the one hand, noise can come from the building itself; neighbors and services generate noise within the building. For this purpose, internal wall and floor insulation is necessary, considering not only aerial noise, but also impact noise created by collision to the building’s surfaces. On the other hand, noise sources often originate outdoors. There are two main solutions for the mitigation of outdoor noise. One is to adapt the existing buildings by using noise-insulating layers on the perimeters of homes. Some research projects have already dealt with the installation of prefabricated elements that can be installed in existing buildings (Figure 3.3) [114]. Another way is to contain the noise at the source, such as at highways, railways, and factories. Noise barriers are necessary at these points, especially in the surroundings of hospitals and care centers. To achieve this, it is recommended to use software tools developed for accurate noise detection and simulation, with which the necessary types of noise barriers can be foreseen (Figure 3.3) [115]. Finally, advanced materials and elements exist that facilitate the mitigation of noise and that can be installed in a few hours [116].
Figure 3.3 Use of prefabricated elements in existing balconies for indoor noise mitigation [114].
Often, dangerous incidents occur on roads and railways. How do we design, manufacture, and install noise barriers fast without disturbing the traffic and the neighborhood? How do we achieve noise mitigation with automated devices and robotics? It is necessary to develop new technologies to answer these questions.
3.2.3 Accessible Built Environment for the Elderly
When the health conditions of an elderly person deteriorate, access to every location in the home becomes problematic. The active measures taken in the robotics field to address this issue will be explained in Section 4.6. Regarding the passive measures on the built environment, spaces might need to be changed. There are four major points to be considered:
In the case of indoor areas, bathrooms, rooms, and kitchens are highly susceptible to major changes in order to become more accessible for the elderly.
The elderly person may need assistance with bed-chair, chair-toilet and chair-bathroom transfers, depending on the person’s health.
In multistory buildings, elevators systems are needed to move incapacitated residents.
Outdoor scenarios are more complex and varied, and thus they have bigger problems.
Currently, the installation of external elevators on existing buildings can be considered an automated operation. The elevator shafts can be prefabricated to as high as 12 meters, placed and fixed with the help of mobile cranes (Figure 3.5 left) [117]. Installing a prefabricated 3D module on existing buildings can be an option for creating accessible bathrooms for the elderly in old quarter buildings [118] (Figure 3.5, right).
3.2.4 Adequate Lighting for the Elderly
The elderly become more sensitive to lack of and/or excess lighting while aging. Proper natural and artificial lighting is necessary for the elderly in order to:
Prevent accidents due to lack of lighting, especially in stairs, kitchens, and bathrooms. The AAL devices sometimes require adequate lighting for optimal functioning.
Adapt the lighting to the biological clock and enhance comfortable visual situations. It has been tested and proved that techniques such as Snoezelen (controlled multisensory environment) are very helpful for people that suffer from dementia [119].
Both excess of light (too much sunlight) and lack of light affect the perception of objects. This can be a major problem when an elderly person needs to recognize food, for instance [120]. Fluorescent light diminishes the color spectrum of things. Therefore, the visual perception decreases [121]. This type of light should be avoided in homes for the elderly.
Figure 3.6 Prefab bathrooms and kitchens in an old Beijing quarter building [118].
3.2.5 A Green, Healthy, and Pleasant Built Environment for the Elderly
Many of the buildings erected during the postwar era followed very strict criteria regarding minimal house surface area. They were designed with many constrictions. Normally, these buildings were built very narrow and followed the trend of the period according to the “hygienist” criteria that preferred higher sun exposure in every corner of the apartment. The form, shape, lighting, color, and vegetation (or lack thereof) of a space can both positively and negatively stimulate an elderly’s orientation, social interaction, and mobility [122].
Figure 3.7 Building a new winter garden in the perimeter of the apartment building. A new pleasant area is added where there is a closer contact with the outdoor [123].
One interesting approach of enlarging apartments was carried out in Paris [123]. The project, as designed by Lacaton & Vassal architects, involved addition of a new interface room, similar to a winter garden (jardin d’hiver). Following the idea of the garden, it can be said that the members of a community can tighten their relations and improve their social life if they participate in common activities [124] (see Figure 3.8). Even though meeting around a garden is pleasant and healthy, not all elderly people have a health condition that allows for planting and harvesting. Agricultural robots can provide a solution for heavy works. Recent developments in robotics, such as the CATCH project, can be an option to properly maintain a garden for the elderly [125].
Figure 3.8 Community gardens for the elderly in urban areas.
Figure 3.9 The CATCH project. Cucumber Gathering Green Field Experiments. EU FP7 research Grant Agreement no 601116 [125].
3.3 Parameters for an Unobtrusive BeuAAL through Automation and Robotics
Renovation works of a building are, traditionally, disturbing to the surrounding area. They generate noise, dust, and dirt. During renovation, depending on the amount of work, the inhabitants might be forced to leave their homes . The adaptation of a living space may be a major issue since the inhabitant may need to temporarily leave or suffer through the major renovation work. Therefore, there is a strong need to find new strategies for a more rapid installation process. Refurbishment works are annoying to building inhabitants and especially for the elderly. Therefore, some strategies are needed in order to minimize the negative effects of renovation of the built environment.
3.3.1 Maximize Off-Site Manufacturing and Minimize On-Site Works
Building upgrades often require the use of several materials, elements, and technologies. A minor renovation process might need to upgrade the structure, the distribution of services such as HVAC, water, ventilation, and ICT. Therefore, it is crucial to minimize in an orderly way the on-site execution of all these tasks. Currently, there is a trend of developing on-site robots using additive techniques or 3D printing [126]. This technology can be very useful in many fields, but for BeuAAL, these devices might be too slow, and also may generate dirt. Therefore, they may be too disturbing for a rapid and unobtrusive BeuAAL.
On the contrary, the prefabrication of modules might be a better option for rapidly installing and upgrading the devices for BeuAAL. As it has been deeply analyzed in previous volumes of Cambridge Handbooks on Construction Robotics [128], the prefabrication of buildings in the Japanese construction sector is highly developed. There is a long tradition of building with prefabricated modules, which (a majority of them) follow a strict and accurate modulation system based on the tatami system. This is an advantage for manufacturing and installing the modules. Moreover, this is also an important parameter for renovation. The Sekisui Heim [127] manufacturing company offers to their clients and the building owners a long-term support system with three main services:
The maintenance and repair of the building elements, such as building structure. This is an important aspect in Japan due to earthquakes. The structures need to be kept in optimal conditions.
Upgrading building elements and services in order to gain a better (energetic) performance.
Upgrading the building to the owner’s functional needs. The company is aware that the household’s models are changing and the inner distribution as well as the accessibility of each of the areas has to be adapted to the new needs.
In the case of Sekisui Heim (Figure 3.10), the company offers its customers the possibility of a long-lasting building maintenance and an upgrading contract covering these three points.
