Spatial Practices of Ageing Well in Place: Collaborative Housing Prototype in Quanfang Village

Sammanfattning

As population ageing deepens and rural-urban migration continues, the practice of ageing in place in rural China is facing new housing challenges. Many older people prefer to continue living in familiar villages, but the out-migration of adult children has made family care less stable. Institutional care can provide structured support, but it does not always fit their living habits or emotional needs. This thesis project therefore focuses on how housing design can support ageing in place in low-income, kinship-based villages. Taking Quanfang Village in Jiangxi Province as a case study, the thesis explores how collaborative housing can be translated through spatial design into a small-scale housing prototype. It brings together literature review and fieldwork to relate ageing in place, collaborative housing, everyday participation, and productive practices to older residents’ everyday lives. Rather than directly copying existing collaborative housing models, the thesis treats collaborative housing as a set of spatial principles that need to be adapted to local conditions. To make this adaptation more specific, the two key design concepts of threshold spaces and activity catalyst are proposed. The spatial interaction framework then summarises how everyday encounters, visual connections, and productive practices can be understood in spatial terms. These ideas are used to inform the later design strategies. The design therefore focuses on two main relationships: the transition between independent living and mutual support, and the connection between shared common spaces and the everyday practices older people are familiar with. The final proposal is a small-scale collaborative housing cluster between the old village and the new village. It responds to older people’s needs for independent living and daily interaction, while also using an incremental development strategy to adapt to local resources, residents’ acceptance, and changing care needs in the future. In this sense, the housing cluster offers Quanfang Village a spatial response between family care and institutional care. It may also provide a useful design reference for ageing well in place in similar low-income, kinship-based villages.