Integrative Ways of Residing: Health and Quality of Residence Architectural Inventions for Dwelling, Ageing and Healthcaring AIDAH

The AIDAH research and innovation environment intends to unfold intra-, inter- and transdisciplinary research supporting implementation projects for a sustainable built environment that confront three major societal challenges:
(1) Increasing diversified articulated demands on the housing market call for alterability and adaptability in solutions for new resilient ways of residing. (2) An ageing society requires new residential ways of living that combine dignity and appropriate care enabling individuals to remain independent in residence as long as possible but that also provide sound working environments for personnel. (3) Profound changes in technical conditions for caring and medical treatment necessitate rethinking traditional healthcare situations and developing new situations ranging from advanced care in residence to intensive care units in hospital and patient hotels.

Sustainability issues at stake in patterns of residential behavior must be considered to have paramount importance in any strategy for a resilient urban future. The involved teams provide different and complementary perspectives focusing on the shared notion of quality of residence considered in architectural, spatial and experiential properties of built environments for housing and healthcare contexts. The applied conceptual and theoretical framework focuses on architectural and caring innovations for reconfigured spatial situations that enhance sustainable caring, improve health, well-being, new welfare and quality of life. Our research effort will particularly focus on identifying and characterizing strategies directed towards the integration of different ways of residing.

The intended scientific integration in conceptual and methodological terms—between architecture humanities research, sociology of residence and caring sciences—is intended to bridge gaps and initiate transgressive academic approaches exploring new modes of knowledge production. Objectives of these approaches include identifying and articulating new resilient qualities in designs, in caring processes and healing environments, thereby providing new operational knowledge developed in close collaboration with diverse actors and stakeholders in society. International research exchange will provide further valid strategic evidence-based design support for decision makers in planning, building and medical services. The interdisciplinary team of researchers from architectural design, social and caring sciences are based at the Centre for Healthcare Architecture, CVA, the recently established Centre for Residential Architecture, CBA and the CIB W069 Commission Residential Studies, all hosted by Chalmers with active team participation also in EU COST Action Intrepid.

Partner organizations

  • Dalarna university (Academic, Sweden)
  • University of Gothenburg (Academic, Sweden)
  • University of Gothenburg (Publisher, Sweden)
Start date 12/11/2013
End date The project is closed: 31/12/2019

​Helle Wijk, Associate Professor, GU, Sahlgrenska Academy

Marie Elf, Senior Lecturer, DH, Dalarna University, Healthcare

Björn Andersson, Associate Professor in Social Work, Department of Social Work, University of Gothenburg. Björn teaches methods in social work that focus on outreach approach, prevention work, social pedagogy and social mobilization. His research covers spatial and social aspects of public life, young people and youth issues as well as aspects of social planning and social sustainability.


Team members

Further information on team members >>


 

Members of the AIDAH Scientific Advisory Board

 

D. Kirk Hamilton, is a Professor of Architecture, FAIA, FACHA, EDA at Texas A&M University, USA, where he teaches healthcare design at the graduate level. His academic research is about the relationship of evidence-based health facility design to measurable organizational performance. He is currently completing a PhD in Nursing & Healthcare Innovation at Arizona State University, studying nurse movement patterns and interaction with objects in the ICU patient room.

Katrin Paadam, is a Dr Professor of Sociology, TUT, Tallinn, EE, at the School of Economics and Business Administration at the Tallinn University of Technology. Her theoretical interests lie in conceptualizing ways of residing in also symbolically charged spatial-architectural settings as they relate to the construction of meanings, identities and well-being of individuals, along residential histories and social practices, especially in the structural conditions of transforming societies. Together with her team she has been engaged in research of public and private rental housing issues, related market strategies and policies; the latest research include practices in residential and public spaces within processes of waterfront regeneration, urban renewal, gentrification, spatial conversion. She has been a partner in interdisciplinary European and Nordic urban housing projects, also in the research on European identities, and involved in NSBB activities. She was a co-coordinator of the Nordic-Baltic researcher network Visurf and co-coordinates CIB W069 on Residential Studies.

Funded by

  • Formas (Public, Sweden)

Nordic Workshop on Architectural Anthropology

The second Nordic Workshop on Architectural Anthropology WS#2​ with support from VR is organized at Chalmers ACE May 8-9 2019 by the Department of Building Design. Key note and lecture programme is soon to be defined including a study visit on campus to Riksbyggen brf Viva. 

​The network gathers researchers from various Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Universities and Architectural Schools, junior researchers and stakeholders from outside academia – all working in the interdisciplinary field between anthropology and architecture. For further info and registration of external participation please contact professor Sten Gromark;  sgromark@chalmers.se. 


More information:

Nordic Research Network for Architectural Anthropology


Professor Sten Gromark, Director of AIDAH, is a co-author of the newly published Ways of Residing in Transformation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Published: Tue 01 Oct 2019.