2009, Vol.15, No.1

JOURNAL OF THE KOREA INSTITUTE OF HEALTHCARE ARCHITECTURE 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.46

pISSN : 2733-8649 / eISSN : 2733-8657
https://journal.kci.go.kr/ikiha

According to the rapid increase of the elderly population, especially frail older population, many kinds of elderly care facilities have been supplied within a relatively short period. Among them, elderly hospitals and elderly welfare facilities have occupied a major portion. The elderly hospital, which had emerged from 1994, has recorded sharp increase in facility numbers and bed numbers by the support of Korean government together with the increase of care demand. However, the concept and fundamental planning criteria of elderly hospitals have not yet been set up. This paper has derived the concept of the elderly hospital from the Medical Law and Elderly Welfare Law, and prospected the supply of it from domestic and international statistics. Also this paper has explored the fundamental design issues of elderly hospitals by analysing precedent studies and designs, and by surveying some facilities.

The nursing home for the elderly has a weak point for evacuation from the fire because most of all the users are suffering from a dementia or paralysis. When it comes to night shift, it is much difficult to get them evacuated due to the lack of staffs. In addition to that, the nursing home for the elderly has such a strict control system for access that does not have a utility for escape opening. That is why they need the differentiated evacuation planning. This study is to consider the point at issues on the present conditions of law, system, and evacuation plans for the nursing home for the elderly that has some difficulties because of impaired functions of residences. This study dealt with the point at facilities and operations of the emergency evacuation system. First of all, for the point at the facilities, I found that it need to be considered on the characteristics of the elderly who has any difficulties of the self evacuation. And the established regulation did not reflect the characteristics of closed area of the nursing home for the elderly. The second, for the point at the operation of the institutions, it is pointed that there seems to be a lack of ways to manage to a emergency situation and educations on the operation staff. And the last, for the point at the operation, the requirement for the managers of fire prevention facilities are similar to that of a normal building. Furthermore there is a lack of corporation with the fire station.

Among welfare facilities for the elderly, necessity for the elderly welfare with diverse advantages is rising in the Small- scale Elderly Care Facilities. The government is expecting great demand in the future. However, current the Facilities lack construction plans that consider characteristics of the elderly. Accordingly, 14 case facilities located in JeollaNamdo and Gwangju were selected to comprehensively analyze the circulation of seniors at care facilities by computing spatial depth and visible area variables. As a result of this study, average spatial depth of bathroom, resting room, physical therapy room and dining hall that seniors frequently get in contact with was found to be deep, but visible area appropriate for the function of space was not available. It showed that the circulation for the elderly was deep spatially and long physically, and the spatial rank along circulation which is perceived visually by the admitted the elderly was clear, thus, providing them abundant visual experience supported by high openness as they move from private space to public space. The obtained visibility, however, was observed not to be matched with the function of each space. Since the Small-scale Elderly Care Facilities require various spaces within small surface area, actual functions of each space must be taken into consideration with hierarchical space organization to obtain an environment that stimulates senses such as vision and hearing. In addition, since the circulation of seniors using facilities must consider aging characteristics and delicate care on spatial depth and physical distances, in-depth studies on planning of the circulation in care facilities are deemed necessary.