Item — Happy Ageing Lab 樂齡實驗室

Participatory Action Research at Private Housing Estate

Project details

Year: 2023-2024

Location: City One Shatin, Hong Kong

Award(s): Winner - Innovation of the Year - Active Ageing Community Programme,12th Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards 2024 @ Ageing Asia Singapore

[1] To learn more about the Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards, please visit: [https://lnkd.in/gKSNutcj ]

[2] Award announcement on the School of Architecture, the Chinese University of Hong Kong's website, please visit: [https://lnkd.in/gsckmmt4 ]

Collaborator/Acknowledgement:

Incubators: ZeShan Foundation, Ho Cheung Shuk Yeun Charitable Foundation:
Community Collaborator: ELCHK Sheen Hok Charitable Foundation Kwan Shon Hing Yu Chui Neighbourhood Elderly Centre
Supporting Organisations: School of Architecture, CUHK; CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing
Prototype Making Collaborator: Making on Loft

Special thanks to the City One Property Management team, Paramatta Estate Management Limited, and the Owners’ Committee of City One Shatin, and all the Age-friendly Ambassadors

Hong Kong is facing the pressing challenge of population ageing and ageing buildings. According to the government's 2021 population census, there are approximately 1.45 million elderly individuals aged 65 and above, accounting for about 20% of the total population, and it is projected to increase to 36% in 2046. In 2022, Hong Kong recorded over 9,600 privately owned buildings that are fifty years old or above. Many large-scale private housing estates in Hong Kong were built between the 1960s and 1980s, and their age has exceeded forty years. The designs and amenities in these estates have not kept pace with the times and fail to meet the diverse needs of residents of different age groups.

Thanks to the support of our Incubators - ZeShan Foundation and Ho Cheung Shuk Yuen Charitable Foundation, Happy Ageing Lab collaborates with School of Architecture CUHK and CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing to initiate a bottom-up participatory action design/research programme to identify key attributes of age-friendly housing and explore possible strategies and design interventions for promoting older adults' active ageing and intergenerational living in CityOne Shatin, which is one of Hong Kong's long-established large-scale private housing estates. Through an iterative co-creation process, participants – older residents and residents of different ages, community stakeholders, and built environment professionals - formed a Community Think Thank to identify pain points and improvement areas, and develop actionable recommendations. At the end of the programme, quick-win prototypes were developed to promote older adults' out-of-home activities and intergenerational uses of communal spaces as a demonstration to stimulate discussion among residents and stakeholders for design refinement, adaptation and scale-up. Based on their feedback, a set of actionable recommendations was derived and shared with key stakeholders, steering the design and planning of improvement/ maintenance works. This co-creation model in City One Shatin serves as a demonstration for micro-regeneration and retrofitting works in similar private housing estates in Hong Kong.

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