New Housing LIN Viewpoint: Learn to Innovate

Our newest viewpoint, by Sonia Parol of Urban Edge Architecture, looks at how European innovations in housing for older people can be applied here in the UK.

The result of research visits to care homes and retirement living schemes in the Netherlands and Denmark, this viewpoint is based on the maxim that "learning and innovation go hand in hand".

In the first of her visits, Sonia shares some of her observations from two urban care homes in Copenhagen that actively encourage social connection through the provision of shared and social spaces.

In her second visit she went to the Netherlands to see two care homes, De Hoegweyk and Humanitas, that have placed the happiness and wellbeing of residents at the centre of their design and operation. Both schemes are highly successful, yet differ greatly from models commonly found in the UK.

And in the final part of her ‘learning to innovate’ series, she and students from Lincoln University explore the lessons learned from their visit to the Humanitas centre in Deventer, Netherlands.