New paper published on the relationship between building design and residents' quality of life in extra care housing schemes

The RAT group’s Dr Alison Orrell’s paper “The relationship between building design and residents’ quality of life in extra care housing schemes” which will be published in the journal “Health and Place” in May is now available online ahead of print at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2012.12.004.

The paper describes a study which collected data on building design and quality of life of the people living in 23 Extra Care Housing (ECH) Schemes in England and found that there was a relationship between the two. Their findings suggest that:

“good quality building design in ECH can support the quality of life of residents, but that designing features that support the needs of both relatively independent and frail users is problematic, with the needs of highly dependent users not currently supported as well as could be hoped by ECH schemes.”

The full paper is available in print in the May issue of Health and Place. 

Citation: Alison Orrell, Kevin McKee, Judith Torrington, Sarah Barnes, 

Robin Darton, Ann Netten, Alan Lewis, The relationship between building design 

and residents’ quality of life in extra care housing schemes, Health & Place, 

Volume 21, May 2013, Pages 52-64, ISSN 1353-8292, 10.1016/j.healthplace.2012.12.004. 

Keywords: Building design; Housing; Extra care housing; Older people; Quality of 

life