A dementia care village

Studio in Eindhoven, Netherlands
Situated in Hanneke’s Boom, Amsterdam, Netherlands

A World of Our Own is a dementia care village

situated Hanneke’s Boom, Amsterdam. The design explores the potential of urbanism and dementia care living.

A typical typology of a Dementia Care Centre is mostly institutionalized, bounded up with walls with spaces usually unintelligible to a dementia patient and situated quite a distance away from the city. Inaccessible institutions like these encourage a lifestyle where patients depend on their caretakers to avoid losing their way. These situation at times, facilitate loneliness and depression. Patients lose their sense of independence and feel walled out of daily life.

The proposed dementia care village, situated in a heavy foot traffic central site, envisions a way of life different from its usual typology. A homely and refreshing living environment that encourages independent living within a safe facility within the possibility of residing in the city.

The village is made up of cascading levels of individual houses that come together, elevated a storey above street level to form an intimate environment for the elderly that is still well-integrated with the urban environment. The elevated streetscape forms the main circulatory element that connects the small houses.

The design incorporates visual cues that act as natural way finders to facilitate independent movement that prove beneficial to a patients condition.

At certain points, the elevated streetscape transitions into a bridge that go over voids which open up to the street level below - connecting both the elderly and the busy city life. The architecture aims to empower dementia patients, retaining their sense of independence and normalcy.