Home Magazines Editors-in-Chief FAQs Contact Us

Controversies surrounding successful architecture for care giving, on the origins of the residential care home vigs ängar in Sweden


Arts & Humanities Open Access Journal
Jonas E Andersson
Royal Institute of Technology

Abstract

Age is a delicate matter, but the Swedish welfare state is ageing with an increasingly larger proportion of elderly people, about 19 per cent. Since 2006, the matter of appropriate housing and care giving for older frail persons has been a reoccurring item on the political agenda. Governmental delegations and programs have ventured out into the great unknown territory of architectural experiences and age-related problems. However, one existing residential care home pops up as an exemplary and universal model for architecture and the frail ageing process, the residential care home of Vigs Ängar in southern Sweden. Initiated as a mutual initiative, between a local anthroposophical interest group and the municipality of Ystad, in the early 1990s, its existence describes a troublesome tension between legal frameworks, managerial systems for eldercare, facility management and idealistic visions for future-oriented care giving. Despite a 20 year existence, the model has generated few followers; the building along with its particular care giving has become an open smorgasbord consisting of architectural elements or therapeutic approaches, subject to free sampling and tasting. To some extent, the anthroposophical label has clouded the resilient approach in architectural design and care-giving for the frail stages in life. The focus of this paper was to go behind semantics and unravel the generating images that constitute the fundamental reason for the exemplary status of the Vigs Ängar. Critical analysis has been applied as a research method in order to scrutinize documents and drawings that originate from the design process. Interviews with many informants, among which the architect, have been executed over the period 2007-2013. The study suggests that the key factor in a successful realization of an RCH is a solid idea for architecture for ageing that encompasses both ephemeral and tangible experiences of space. This architecture structures both the older person’s quality in life as well as the individual staff member’s satisfaction with the work environment.

Keywords

Architecture for ageing; Generator images; Residential care homes; Sweden; Vigs angar; Local turmoil; Anthroposophical; Swedish architecture; Licentiate thesis

Testimonials