Habitat Intermediate

4 min readOct 1, 2019

A week-long exercise to learn about research methods in social design while unpacking the meaning and significance of old age homes in France.

Team: Shreya, Lina and Johnathan

In La Chapelle Sur Erdre (a small commune in the west of France), live 20, 000 people of which 50 per cent are living alone and 23 per cent are elderly people. We will be working on learning about and unpacking the layers and complexities that exist behind the care for old persons while learning about research methodologies. We are looking at nursing homes, co- housing, shared living spaces and independent living arrangements among many kinds of arrangements while asking questions about their fears, social complexities and habits that form a key part of their daily life. The project has been titled: “Habitat Intermediate” which entails serving old persons’ needs within the comfort of a home with or without being at home.

1- Brainstorming

Good brainstorming requires choosing the few(1–2) right keywords for the line of inquiry. we chose “Old” and “home”.

2- Analysing the brainstorming

We then gathered our insights as follows:

-The taboo of death: Old people are a reminder of death. (you’d be happier if someone said you look younger than the later)

-Cultural history and traditions

-Gender (life expectancy of women is greater than that of men)

-New habits after retirement

-The place of family in our lives

-Social representation of old age

3- Interviews- using a qualitative research tool

We did an activity in pairs of two where we drew the layouts of our houses. Then in each room of the house, we drew the object that reminded us of that room or was of special significance to that room for us. This was a good way to talk to a person about their home while learning more about them.

4-Designing a grid

We designed a grid with the various factors affecting the old persons’ quality of life. The information written in the grid could change subject to further research an insights throughout the studio project.

5- Preparing questions for fieldwork the next day

We wrote and translated the questions to the french since we will be taking interviews in French

The next day, we set out for field research to La Chapelle Sur Erdre to interview elderly people. The following is a video that summarises the field visit :

Based on our interviews, we created personas and journey maps taking the actual layout of the town and identified various gaps and opportunities along the way: