Spatial Interventions and Humanistic Care in Biophilic Design within the Context of an Aging Society
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/3xzayx76Keywords:
Biophilic Design; Aging Society; Loneliness; Humanistic Care; Healthcare Environments; Cross-National Comparison.Abstract
The accelerating global trend of population aging, combined with changes in family structures that have weakened traditional eldercare functions, has transformed loneliness and caregiving pressures faced by older adults into a pressing public challenge. In this context, the living and care environments of the elderly have become critically important for their physical and mental well-being. Biophilic design theory provides an interdisciplinary framework for improving eldercare settings; however, its application in elderly care still faces limitations including low adoption rates, insufficient integration with regional contexts and spatial functions, inadequate responsiveness to the specific psychosocial needs of older populations, and a lack of theoretical depth. To address these gaps, this study proceeds on three levels: first, it selects Singapore, Japan, and the Nordic region as comparative cases to examine how cultural backgrounds, climatic conditions, and urbanization patterns shape biophilic design practices and their integration with local contexts; second, it focuses on the distinctive characteristics of older adults in sensory perception, mobility, and social roles, employing subjective semantic analysis to articulate the necessity of localized reconstruction of biophilic design principles; and finally, it constructs a graduated implementation framework that identifies high-efficiency spatial nodes through accessibility analysis, providing clear pathways for the strategic deployment of biophilic interventions under cost constraints and systematically enhancing their universality and effectiveness.
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