Isaiah Durosaiye

Housing the urban poor in suitable conditions is an uphill battle in all countries of the world. Inadequate housing, however, is a more severe problem in developing countries like Nigeria. With a population of over 180 million, it has a housing shortage of more than 17 million units. The situation in Abuja, its capital city, is even worse due to the recent security challenges in Nigeria, rural-urban migration, and increasing population growth. To identify the low-income group and assess the barriers to low-income housing provision in Nigeria. An extant literature review of low-income housing provision in Nigeria was followed by stakeholder interviews. Literature review enabled grouping research stakeholders into policy makers, housing providers and end-users. The transcripts of the interviews were analysed using content analysis. The most compelling finding of the study is the inability to clearly define the characteristics of the low-income group in Nigeria within contemporary economic reality, which is influencing housing provision. The result of the study indicates that despite an attempt by the Nigerian national housing policy, low-income group remain undefined, which is a potent impediment to low-income housing provision in the country.

Loneliness is rising amongst several age groups in several countries with older UK adults being one of the affected populations. Early work from South Korea on the use of a network of social robots exchanging activity information between different households, so-called ‘living noise’, yielded positive results in incentivizing communication between young professionals, thereby reducing loneliness. In this short article, we report the results of a co-design workshop held with lonely, older UK adults that aimed to determine the potential of adoption of living noise transmission amongst this population. The results were encouraging and will feed into future work involving the deployment of robots and virtual avatars in people’s homes.

This study explores to determine the live-work housing needs of low-income older people in informal settlements, the ways of life of whom contemporary housing provision often fails to consider. A questionnaire survey was conducted in three communities in Klong Toey, the largest informal settlement in Bangkok, to understand households’ satisfaction levels and expectations regarding the interior quality of their live-work housing. Older people’s specific interior spaces and housing requirements and expectations vary depending on the nature of their livelihood activities that can be categorised into three main groups, namely service, cook, and stock. The findings suggest a strong relationship between housing domains and the overall satisfaction of older people. There is a strong relationship between overall housing satisfaction and comfort in interior living spaces, as well as safety for domestic working spaces. Design, Health, Comfort, and Adaptability are important domains for live-work environments that ensure housing meets older people’s expectations. Therefore, housing design and improvements should embrace the live-work concept to maintain a sustainable and healthy ageing environment.

Housing and Living off the grid in an era of Urbanisation

Live-work housing is a dwelling type that accommodates living and livelihood activities. In the Global South, live-work housing plays a vital role in income generation and is central to poverty alleviation at the household level. They are particularly vital to women and older people by giving them a level of financial independence that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. Despite these and owing to limited understanding, live-work housing in the Global South remains unpopular with planning and regulatory authorities because it is perceived to be synonymous with informal settlements and poor living and working conditions. However, in order to make adequate housing provision for residents of informal settlements, it is important not to just devise a vision of the new space to be created but to first understand how low-income people use their existing spaces to sustain their living and livelihood. The most suitable tool to generate such a knowledge base is postoccupancy evaluation. This project developed and tested a live-work housing evaluation tool for low-income informal settlements in Bangkok, Thailand.

Aims To develop, validate and test a ward environment assessment tool (WEAT) for post‐occupancy evaluation of hospital wards from the perspectives of ward nurses, using Person‐Environment fit theory. Background It is argued that as the needs and expectations of various user groups of healthcare facilities would vary, so would the tools to measure the suitability of the architectural design features of these healing environments for different groups of users. However, a review of relevant literature revealed that there is a dearth of assessment tools to appraise the adequacy of healthcare facilities for nursing staff. Methods Extant literature was reviewed to construct WEAT. Twenty ward nurses were interviewed to obtain user perspectives on the ward environment. Post‐occupancy evaluation of three hospital wards was undertaken to validate and test WEAT. Results WEAT: A new post‐occupancy evaluation tool was created. Conclusions WEAT measures the impacts of ward environment on nurses in four personal constructs; namely physical, cognitive, sensory and universal. Implications for Nursing Management WEAT is an innovative management decision‐making tool for ward managers, who may use its results to argue for workspace redesign with facilities managers, explore job readjustments with occupational health nurses, and review job description with human resource managers.

The article presents findings of a research project on housing and care models that support aging in place. It explores the role of home–based assistive technologies in achieving aging in place in the Chinese urban context. It reviews research underpinning assistive technologies to understand their development and conceptualization globally and in China. There is a growing need to find solutions that help older people to age well in their own homes. Older people’s wish to remain independent for as long as possible is also a positive outcome that can alleviate the increasing demand on the health and social care systems. This study used three focus groups in Beijing to explore personal safety, access to health and social care, and social inclusion. The findings provide recommendations to support the design of age–friendly environments that are technologically enhanced to enable better health, safety, independence and a sense of community in China.