Long may we live!
The nursing home
Nursing homes are a distinct category within housing for the elderly. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries chronically sick elderly people were accommodated in almshouses or mental hospitals. Nursing homes usually have wards or bedrooms on either side of a long corridor plus bathrooms, kitchens, dining rooms and sometimes accommodation for resident personnel. In the latter half of the twentieth century, there was a move towards treating the elderly in geriatric hospitals and returning them to their homes following recovery.
Many nursing homes were built in the twentieth century, some of them as nursing wings within a retirement home. In terms of layout (the corridor system), atmosphere and regulations, they are similar to hospitals. Until the 1970s residents were accommodated in open wards and spent their days in communal recreation rooms. Retirement homes and nursing homes were often linked by a central hallway or courtyard. Some have a rehabilitation department and modest treatment rooms. Today need assessment is stricter: only those who can no longer live independently are given a place in a nursing home. The population of nursing homes is thus in decline and new homes are being built only for pensioners with severe physical and psychological impairments. In architectural terms, this requires a careful balance between the creation of a pleasant residential environment and the provision of optimal care, in which the design of the interior is increasingly important.
Elderly care in Norway (1949)
Housing for the elderly was also an urgent subject of study in other European countries immediately after the war. This ...
➝ Read moreSint Jacob psychiatric hospital (1864) W.J.J. Offenberg
The Sint Jacob psychiatric hospital in Amsterdam was built as a Roman Catholic home for elderly men and women in the sec...
➝ Read moreSint Jacob (1959) H. van Putten
In the 1950s architect H. van Putten designed a new infirmary for the Sint Jacob retirement home in Amsterdam. In those ...
➝ Read moreThe place of the nursing home in Dutch healthcare (1966) H.W. Stuit
Nursing homes are a special category within housing for the elderly. They house people with chronic health problems, the...
➝ Read moreDe Buitenhof (2000) Soeters Van Eldonk
In 1997 architectural practice Soeters Van Eldonk was commissioned to transform the 'hospital atmosphere' of De Buitenho...
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