Life span is greatly increased and therefore urban textures host more and more older adults; unluckily outdoor spaces are not conformed for their exigencies. In particular, when performing their everyday activities by walking, senior citizens have to cope with mobility conditions endangering their possibility to participate in outdoor activities and to lead an autonomous, independent life. This situation can make difficult integrating in society, can eliminate a stimulus to remain active and thence lead to a passivity that can affect health and induce greater isolation. Thus keeping older adults mobile is a goal of European policy. The European research “SIZE - Life Quality of Senior Citizens in relation to Mobility Conditions” analyses what enhances and what limits the mobility of senior citizens, which strategies are successful for improving the situation, how cities have to be designed for easing walking around. The research is strongly interdisciplinary: architects, urban planners and traffic engineers worked together with psychologists and sociologists, being flanked by seniors’ national associations. The central part of the research was dedicated to individuate opinions of users and experts by various enquiry means (focus groups, qualitative and quantitative interviews). The recurrence of fears, barriers and quality of life indicators together with the importance of the solutions, were detected, with the aim of depicting a clear picture of the situation, more or less shared by the sample, in the eight involved countries, and of motivating action by responsible authorities. This article deals more in particular with some results of WP12-Working out solutions, of which the author was responsible. Such work package was aimed at defining guidelines and recommendations for devising and carrying out policies and implementations appropriate to fulfil the goal of keeping senior citizens mobile, and in particular of designing an agreeable walking environment also for them. The requirement/performance approach was fundamental; by the satisfaction index it is possible to define the prior areas of intervention. Safety, security and sociability seem to be the most important unmet requirements or missing performances; by comparison, comfort and accessibility seem less important. A specific methodology was applied to represent the problems and to interrelate problems and solutions, to rank, evaluate and select them. To solve the detected problems a collection of technical and non-technical solutions and measures, that can be considered more or less trans-national, is defined according to partners’ suggestions and partners’ and senior associations’ evaluations. Each measure is described and assessed in a form in order to help the choice, depending on the case, of the most appropriate one for solving the specific detected problem and for each specific local situation. In the article, a selection of most recurrent problems and urgent solutions is briefly presented. The selected solutions and measures pertain to different fields of action and can to be applied at different scale; in particular the ones pertaining to the infrastructural field of action concern the environmental design, from the district, to the street and the detail level. The research outcomes highlight a set of more targeted, alternative measures that, having received a high evaluation also by the representatives of the participating Seniors’ National Associations, are considered not only as more appropriate for solving seniors’ problems but also more agreeable to them. They indeed meet specific requirements and offer the requested performances.

Martincigh, L. (2008). "Progettare un ambiente fruibile dalle persone anziane, senza difficoltà e con piacere: suggerimenti per linee guida dalla ricerca europea SIZE". AEA INFORMA(1/2 e 3/4), 81-90.

"Progettare un ambiente fruibile dalle persone anziane, senza difficoltà e con piacere: suggerimenti per linee guida dalla ricerca europea SIZE"

MARTINCIGH, Lucia
2008-01-01

Abstract

Life span is greatly increased and therefore urban textures host more and more older adults; unluckily outdoor spaces are not conformed for their exigencies. In particular, when performing their everyday activities by walking, senior citizens have to cope with mobility conditions endangering their possibility to participate in outdoor activities and to lead an autonomous, independent life. This situation can make difficult integrating in society, can eliminate a stimulus to remain active and thence lead to a passivity that can affect health and induce greater isolation. Thus keeping older adults mobile is a goal of European policy. The European research “SIZE - Life Quality of Senior Citizens in relation to Mobility Conditions” analyses what enhances and what limits the mobility of senior citizens, which strategies are successful for improving the situation, how cities have to be designed for easing walking around. The research is strongly interdisciplinary: architects, urban planners and traffic engineers worked together with psychologists and sociologists, being flanked by seniors’ national associations. The central part of the research was dedicated to individuate opinions of users and experts by various enquiry means (focus groups, qualitative and quantitative interviews). The recurrence of fears, barriers and quality of life indicators together with the importance of the solutions, were detected, with the aim of depicting a clear picture of the situation, more or less shared by the sample, in the eight involved countries, and of motivating action by responsible authorities. This article deals more in particular with some results of WP12-Working out solutions, of which the author was responsible. Such work package was aimed at defining guidelines and recommendations for devising and carrying out policies and implementations appropriate to fulfil the goal of keeping senior citizens mobile, and in particular of designing an agreeable walking environment also for them. The requirement/performance approach was fundamental; by the satisfaction index it is possible to define the prior areas of intervention. Safety, security and sociability seem to be the most important unmet requirements or missing performances; by comparison, comfort and accessibility seem less important. A specific methodology was applied to represent the problems and to interrelate problems and solutions, to rank, evaluate and select them. To solve the detected problems a collection of technical and non-technical solutions and measures, that can be considered more or less trans-national, is defined according to partners’ suggestions and partners’ and senior associations’ evaluations. Each measure is described and assessed in a form in order to help the choice, depending on the case, of the most appropriate one for solving the specific detected problem and for each specific local situation. In the article, a selection of most recurrent problems and urgent solutions is briefly presented. The selected solutions and measures pertain to different fields of action and can to be applied at different scale; in particular the ones pertaining to the infrastructural field of action concern the environmental design, from the district, to the street and the detail level. The research outcomes highlight a set of more targeted, alternative measures that, having received a high evaluation also by the representatives of the participating Seniors’ National Associations, are considered not only as more appropriate for solving seniors’ problems but also more agreeable to them. They indeed meet specific requirements and offer the requested performances.
2008
Martincigh, L. (2008). "Progettare un ambiente fruibile dalle persone anziane, senza difficoltà e con piacere: suggerimenti per linee guida dalla ricerca europea SIZE". AEA INFORMA(1/2 e 3/4), 81-90.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11590/117911
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