About The Senior-friendly Furniture
This article is from the “Design Talk” column of Furniture Today.
Introduction
As aging continues to increase, how to let the elderly enjoy their old age has become a social topic. In China, due to the influence of traditional culture, most of the elderly choose to live at home. In addition to residential space, furniture has also become a key factor in determining the quality of life for the aged.
“Senior-friendly furniture” designed based on the physiology and emotions of the elderly is conducive to ensuring the quality of home care and improving the living environment of the elderly.
In the column “Design Talk of “Furniture Today””, we are honored to invite independent designer Lifeng to have a dialogue on the design of “furniture for elderly”.
About the interviewee --- Lifeng
Lifeng, an independent designer, editor-in-chief of Ruogu Design WeChat official account, editor-in-chief of “Lifeng Looks at Japanese Design” in Chinese Xiaohongshu, graduated from Kyushu University with a master’s degree in product innovation, and has been focusing on product innovation design for many years.
His design works have won Red Dots, A Design, The Golden Dot Award, Japan Design Society Grand Prize and other awards. And he is dedicated to the innovative design of traditional Chinese industries, hoping to break the inherent thinking and use their own perceptual thinking to make products more warm.
Aging is something we all have to go through. If the furniture used by the elderly can be people-oriented, capture the key points to solve problems, bring spiritual relief to the elderly, and rekindle their enthusiasm and curiosity for life, then our society could be a better place.
1. Be Functional: making furniture more friendly to the elderly
Furniture Today: Compared with young and middle-aged people and children, what do you think is the difference in the needs of the elderly for furniture?
Lifeng: Design requirements are various, such as comfort requirements, functional requirements, visual requirements, emotional requirements, etc. The needs of different groups of people are different. Generally, the group can be divided into: young and middle-aged people, children, and the elderly.
Young and middle-aged people will have more diversified choices. For example, some people prefer the good-looking designs, and some prefer the more comfortable ones. Now, the young and middle-aged people are a very individual group of people. Sometimes when one of their needs is fully satisfied, other needs are not very important. For example, some aesthetic furniture represents the artistic and aesthetic needs of some people. So it would be fine to be placed at home just for the good looking. As for whether it is easy to use or not, sometimes it is not very important.
When it comes to children’s furniture and elderly furniture, designers have to consider many things like the parents and the sons or daughters. It is necessary to make your own design expression under the condition of satisfying the absolute safety of use and materials. For children’s furniture, because most of the buyers are mothers, good visual and interesting features are needed to impress them. Elderly furniture, in addition to safety, functionality is also more important. For example: whether it is good for the elderly to get up after sitting down, whether it will be uncomfortable after sitting for a long time, etc.
Furniture Today: Do you think existing generic furniture is friendly enough for the elderly?
Lifeng: For now, it is not friendly. The current general-purpose furniture needs to add some auxiliary accessories to meet the home needs of the elderly. For example, sofas and beds need to add an accessory for getting up. In addition, the size and hardness of many furniture are not very friendly to the elderly. When designing children’s furniture, we will think about its growth and sustainability. However, the design of general-purpose furniture usually does not consider what will happen if the people who use it gets old or the elderly people use it.
2. Design: Need to focus on the dignity of the elderly
Furniture Today: As the most common furniture category, what kind of aging-friendly design ideas should be followed?
Lifeng: To solve the problem of getting up for the elderly, some designs can be made on the armrest of the seat, and a riser can be added to the seat cushion to help the elderly get up through the elastic force.
The seats used by the elderly must be more sophisticated than other seats, including the choice of materials and the angle of inclination, which need to be carefully considered.
The bones of the elderly are relatively fragile, so the upholstery material with a suitable shape design which can reduce the pressure on the bones caused by the backrest would be a good choice. All in all, for the chairs or other types of furniture for the elderly, their designs should start from the actual needs of elderly and be refined according to various conditions such as the age of the elderly and physical function.
Furniture Today: When designing for aging, how can designers achieve the best balance between touch and vision?
Lifeng: I like to design from the perspective of function, structure or a certain detail, and finally consider the appropriate touch (material) and vision. After satisfying the basics of the former and the factory process and production conditions, I continued to debug the latter, and finally made it comfort, that is, balance.
Furniture Today: How do designers give emotional care and companionship to the elderly from the level of objects? And how to improve living household products to make up for the emotional needs of the elderly?
Lifeng: I think designers need to think from the perspective of the elderly. A few years ago, my cousin bought my grandmother a hearing aid which was quite expensive at that time. And my family praised my cousin for her filial piety. However, my grandmother just refused to wear it. Later, my mother bought a wheelchair for my grandmother, ans she still refuse to sit on the wheelchair.
These questions have troubled me for a long time. Why is it that the elderly does not accept the filial piety? And the answer has only gradually become clear in the past two years, that is, we stand from different angles. We often only think about problems from our own perspective, and often buy things for her that we think she needs, but ignore the emotional needs of the elderly.
Now the things we design and send are too ‘age-like’. Sending hearing aids seems to be saying that your ears are not working. Sending a wheelchair seems to be saying that your legs and feet are not good. These will hurt their dignity.
Therefore, I’m thinking, can we really design products with “heart” to maintain their self-esteem. Some designs it is ‘hidden’ and well integrated into everyday life. For example: When the elderly cannot hear well, is it possible to integrate some hearing aid functions into their daily accessories instead of an obvious and obtrusive hearing aid. The lifters of sofa or bed for the elderly are not so obtrusive in the space environment in normal times, but exist in a certain form of fusion. And that can let the elderly have an adaptation process.
3. Under the trend of intelligence, it can be not so intelligent
Furniture Today: Smart furniture is seen as an effective solution to the problems of home life for the elderly. What do you think of this point of view?
Lifeng: Intelligentization is indeed a big trend. It solves many life problems and brings a lot of convenience to our life. But there is a question that needs to be discussed in depth: how to be intelligent?
The needs of the elderly have different stages. For example, in terms of walking, they can be divided into those who can still walk, those who need to use tools to walk and those who cannot walk at all. We need to make different assessments. I have seen a game in a geriatric hospital in Japan. The game mechanism is to encourage the elderly to do sports through rewards. For example, an old man goes to rehabilitation training. After the training, he can get game coins with which he can buy something.
I think some furniture is too smart for the elderly. They solve all the problems, but the subjective initiative of the elderly cannot be stretched. Sometimes, the elderly also need less smart furniture, which is like a bait to encourage them into action.
Can the furniture also be treated in a relatively gamified way? When they can still walk and exercise, encourage them to listen more, walk more, communicate more and entertain more, so that the body functions will not degenerate prematurely. I think this is the real intelligence. True intelligence should rekindle the joy of life for the elderly, but not deprive them of the opportunity to think and act.
Furniture Today: What do you think of the future development prospects of “senior-friendly furniture”?
Lifeng: The prospects are definitely great. Data from many related reports point out that senior-friendly industrial products are growing rapidly. But when you go to Taobao to search for senior-friendly furniture, you will find that most of them are currently focusing on nursing homes and other centralized elderly care places. The design is a bit rough, like cheap products, which only meets the most basic needs.
I talked to a senior who used to work in the elderly care industry before. She said that there is little demand for the design of elderly products, and most products of this type are mainly imported. It may take some time to adapt to aging furniture, and wait for the further expansion of the market. Only when the demand is great can the design have a place.
Furniture Today: In recent years, the concept of “barrier-free” design has gradually become popular. In your opinion, how to add “barrier-free” settings to home care spaces?
Lifeng: At present, I think the bathroom has a relatively high demand for “barrier-free” design. Because accidents are most likely to happen in this space. Elderly people tend to fall easily when taking a bath to use the toilet or when there is water on the ground. The transformation of the aging bathroom space is a promising project. In some cases, the bathtub is removed and replaced with a shower and a shower stool. Besides, an intelligent riser is installed on the toilet to facilitate the elderly to get up by adjusting the height of the toilet.
Of course, there are measures such as adding handrails, using anti-slip floor tiles, and adjusting the light. There are still many aspects to be considered in the “barrier-free” design.
