Potential for Ageing at Home in the Finnish Apartment Building Stock: A Spatial Perspective on Renovation

Populations around the world are ageing rapidly, owing largely to increased longevity. This development, while positive in itself, sets great demands for providing suitable housing—especially when combined with the nearly universally embraced goal of ageing at home. There is a growing need for accessible dwellings, which the similarly ageing housing stocks that are often disproportionately inhabited by old residents fail to meet. Furthermore, with the rising proportion of the oldest old and widespread favor of deinstitutionalization, assisted living is increasingly needed to care for those in poorest health. At the same time, the increasing urbanization in many countries makes new construction a largely infeasible solution to this joint challenge of population and building stock ageing, both ecologically and economically. Instead, focus is more and more shifting from new construction to managing the existing stock through renovation.

The general need for building adaptations to support ageing at home is well acknowledged, as are the potential benefits of various adaptations. Notably lacking, however, is research on the spatial renovation measures that are on the one hand typically needed, and on the other hand feasible to implement in those typical cases. The current research addresses this gap by examining Finnish mass housing from the 1970s, which as in many other countries forms a major part of the current overall dwelling stock and houses a similarly major part of the ageing population. Corresponding to the main forms of housing for older people in Finland, the existing stock is assessed from the specific perspectives of suitability and adaptability for independent housing, and adaptability into assisted living group homes.

Methodologically the dissertation is based on taking a typological approach to building stock research, through which typical properties of the stock are assessed through a reduced set of theoretical cases. As the foundation for the assessment, a quantitative examination of a representative sample of existing apartment buildings is conducted to determine the recurring spatial properties in the stock. This part produces a typological categorization of spatial layouts based on network theory with complementary information on dimensions and structural systems.

Addressing the perspective of independent housing for older people, the above is first followed by a literature informed, research by design -based multi-case study. Through this the common changes required in typical apartments, and the options available for conducting them, are determined. Next, a quantitative examination similar to the earlier one is aimed at existing assisted living group homes, together with a complementary literature review, identifying their typical spatial characteristics. The resulting information combined with that on the spatial properties of existing apartment buildings is then used in a quantitative multi-case study to assess the potential for repurposing apartment building floors into assisted living group homes for older people.

The results of the research indicate that the Finnish mass housing stock holds vast potential for housing the ageing population, and that renovation constitutes a viable complement and alternative to new construction. Through different degrees of adaptation, it is typically spatially feasible to address the changing housing needs ranging from fully independent apartments to intensive forms of assisted living. For independent housing, relatively minor changes will often suffice to reach significant improvements. For assisted living, more spacious designs than are common in new construction will have to be accepted, which is arguably advisable regardless due to the often extreme compactness found in recent production.

The dissertation contributes to the field of building stock research by developing and presenting tested typological methods for assessing renovation potential and refining this potential into generalizable design models. While the direct findings discussed above pertain primarily to the Finnish context, the methods introduced can be applied to any sufficiently repetitive stock. Furthermore, they are not tied to the specific use case of housing for older people the current research focused on. In addition to the aforementioned design models, the practical implications of the research mainly concern informed decision making in utilizing the existing buildings. The results presented support acknowledging and examining the stock as not only what it is, but also as what it could be. Through the combination of quantitative data and concrete, tested designs, this contribution covers a wide range of perspectives from national policy making to individual homeowners.