Zoekresultaten

A sense of home through the eyes of nursing home residents

The nursing home is often a final stage in the living career of older persons, but the question remains whether it is a true home or merely a place where care is provided for the residents. This study investigates the sense of home and its constituent factors among both permanent and temporary residents of nursing homes in The Netherlands. A qualitative research design was chosen for the study, which consisted of in-depth interviews using a topic list that was developed through literature review and a focus group session. Autonomy and safety and security are the basic aspects for a sense of home. These aspects refer to the relationships and actions of nursing home residents and the environment in which people live. The research findings show that developing a sense of home encompasses much more than just being surrounded by personal belongings and having a private room with certain facilities. Subjective components of relationships and (inter)actions are as important as the physical component of living and housing. Only when a right balance is achieved between all factors, a true sense of home, albeit away from the familiar home someone spent most of his/her life, can be developed. Understanding these perspectives and needs can contribute to a better design and retrofitting process of future nursing homes.

Interview | Lindsay Howard, Temporary Highs

Solving housing shortages by transforming buildings into comfortable homes

How to find out what students, starters, and other new households of transformed buildings need to create a home environment with a comfortable climate without losing meanings attributed to the home?

Fitting in and being unique

This article investigates the aesthetic advice posted by temporary employment agencies on their websites. These agencies organise a substantial part of the Dutch labour market and they are known to apply exclusionary practices in their strategies of recruitment and selection in order to meet employers’ preferences. This article sheds light on (1) the content of the advice; (2) how it legitimises the importance of aesthetics for finding work; and (3) in what ways the advice serves the purposes of the agencies. An in-depth content analysis illustrates how the advice has the potential to reproduce exclusions, thus helping employment agencies adhere to employers’ exclusionary requests. Creating online content that generates traffic to the websites in this case causes a circular logic in which the importance of aesthetics is self-reinforcing. The study illustrates that the seemingly neutral and empty advice posted on websites may enforce exclusions in the temporary work labour market.

Making a home out of a temporary dwelling

Temporary transformations of vacant buildings could alleviate the shortage of housing for urgent home seekers. However, not much is known about the transformation of buildings into temporary, adequate, and affordable housing. A multidisciplinary literature review covering design, indoor environmental quality, housing, and environmental psychology, was performed to determine if such an integrative approach could shed light on a new perspective to provide housing for ‘urgent home seekers’. Subsequently, building transformation case studies were compared with the literature review findings. It is concluded that there is a gap in knowledge on how the concept of ‘home’ can be added to existing regulations in order to design and realise temporary housing that fits the needs of urgent home seekers.

Solving housing shortages by transforming buildings in comfortable homes

There is a shortage of housing and people with a lower income suffer most from this. Vacant buildings are transformed to provide quick housing for them, but it is not sure whether this provides a comfortable home, both from an indoor climate and a meaning making perspective. Existing material about completed transformation projects and six case studies was used to explore possible opportunities to improve the match of user and building. It appeared that buildings are only transformed when they are left vacant for a while and a new function shifts the investment balance. Also, higher quality housing was only provided when it was not meant to be temporary or meant to be sold instead of rented. Current regulations and standards are not met and appear not adequate to function for temporary transformation projects, and matching users and buildings including the meaning of home is an opportunity worth exploring to provide a comfortable home for everyone.