Medical and Senior Building Research Institute

June 19, 2020    Author

With the general improvement of health and life expectancy, the global population has been accelerating aging. It is estimated that from 2000 to 2050, the population of elderly people over 65 years old in Asia will increase from 7% to 18%1, 2. The elderly's demand for medical services is usually higher than that of other age groups. Based on their respective cultural economy and development status, environmental design research for medical and elderly care buildings is at different stages around the world.

The design and research of my country's medical and pension buildings is still in its infancy. At the "Design and Health, 2014 China International Symposium" held in Beijing in October 2014, reporters and participants from the government, hospitals, universities, and Chinese and foreign design institutes all emphasized the importance of medical and elderly care design research on my country’s current The importance of development. The green construction of new hospitals and the high-quality transformation of existing hospitals are important measures related to the people's livelihood. At present, a large number of international private hospitals are under construction in China, and their development has had an impact on the design and construction of public hospitals. However, most of the international design and design research are based on Western culture and crowd carriers, and the applicability of its design and theories in the humanistic environment of our country still needs to be discussed. This is vital to the design and development of medical buildings in our country. Domestic research in this area has started, but there are no relevant research institutions in the central provinces. On the other hand, research on the design of elderly care buildings has started internationally since the 1980s, but it is still just getting started in China.

The National Social Science Fund Project "A Sino-US Comparison of Senior Care Environment Design and Its Industrial Competitiveness" obtained by the School of Civil Engineering and Architecture of Henan University in 2013 is the first national fund project known about senior care architectural design research. The team has already carried out relevant research, and in the research, we feel the lack of design research in this area and the urgency of improving construction quality. The current rapid development of senior care real estate and the application of the medical-care integration model in practice have brought many new problems and thoughts. It also brings new opportunities to design researchers. The design and research of the medical and elderly care environment need to fully consider the national conditions. In order to improve the competitiveness of China's architectural and environmental design, how to design a high-quality medical and elderly care environment based on specifications is an urgent question to be answered. As a member of Henan University with a century-old heritage, the team is actively carrying out design research and teaching of medical and elderly care buildings.