Aged-care design, an irresistible trend. 

                -- Mr. Japanese Design 

▸ Photo from：Unsplash.com

Japan is known as a super aged society. With large amount of senior people, Japan pays more attention to their life.  In Japan, there are many design competitions and exhibitions on the aged people. These activities bring out a large quantity of excellent designs and make the public to understand the importance of these designs that help people with the independent living in the later years.

▸ Photo: GOODDESIGNAWARD Exhibition

For a significant portion of Japanese elderly people live alone and many elderly people spend more than a half day at home, it is quiet important that the designs on the living environment and daily life for the elderly.

Which new designs in the recent two years help the "healthy life"? Today, let me introduce some new design produces.

01/Japanese "Design for Health" Focusing on Functions and Details

From the living conditions, there are a large quantity of apartments and houses suitable for the elderly in Japan. In many details of these rooms, many optimized designs are worth of learning. Let me give you some samples.

· Design Management on Overall Layout ·

The overall indoor floor area is 45-85㎡. Bigger space is not easy to clean. The area range is enough and does not make residents to feel embarrassing. 

▸ Photo: Panasonic Center in Osaka

· Design Details Focusing on Safety and Functions·

In details, updated designs are made in both bathroom and washing room that exist many risk. The width of the bathroom vanity is widened so that the elderly could easily sit and use. At the same time, the floor is finished with quick-dry and anti-sliding processing. The roof is equipped with the warm air machine and the drying machine that prevent the risk caused by ponding.

▸ Photo: Panasonic Center in Osaka

The area of foyer increases to make the elderly with cart or wheelchair easier to access. What a lifesaving design for the disabled elderly!

▸ Photo: Panasonic Center in Osaka

In addition, most of doors are sliding doors. There is a foldable tatami chair at the entrance of the foyer. What thoughtful details!

 

▸ Photo: Panasonic Center in Osaka

Varied kinds of indoor equipment and systems could automatically adjust the temperature, humility, lighting and etc., which could subtly promote the health of the dwellers!

Two years ago, we visited Panasonic Center hall in Osaka. We learned a lot. In both details of design and technological care, Japanese "Design for Health"  is worth of learning in the context of aging society.

02/Japanese Design for Health Implemented in China

In recently, century-old Japanese enterprise Panasonic offered a new life solution for domestic living space. Let's have a look!

· Panasonic Wellness Smart House Settled in Zisha Capital Yixing·

Panasonic cooperates with Yada to build Yada Panasonic Community in Yixing, the Zisha Capital. With the concept of Panasonic Wellness Smart Community, it is fully equipped with the leading wellness and aged-care products originally designed and developed by Panasonic in recent two years. It offers a living space for the purpose of health, comfort and safety. It has 1170 households in total.

We and well-known designer Mr. Shuhei Aoyama visited the Panasonic Wellness Smart House at Yada Panasonic Community. The House can be seen as an epitome of the community. You could experience the leading wellness & aged-care products from Panasonic.

The design of the House is quite Japanese style. It feeds our sights on.

The house displays varied kinds of household appliances designed by Panasonic, expressing the healthy lifestyle combining Japanese design style from the aspects of safety, health and culture.

In Japan, there are many foot massage springs along the street. The House set a foot spring for visitors. It restores the real Japanese hot spring culture.

To represent Panasonic's "Wellness Smart Community" concept, the Community is equipped with strong-functional technological products full of details, besides perfect infrastructure and rich cultural experience.  

The following intelligent technology really surprised us!

Yada Panasonic Community introduced three items in total.

· One: 6C Air Circulation System ·

We don't know whether you have the experience of looking for and buying houses. When we learn a house, we often focus on if the room is south-north all-transparent. That is because it could have a good air circulation. It is good to the health.

Therefore many houses equip primary air system plus the humidifier, the dehumidifier, the air purifier and other home appliances.

Panasonic's 6C Air Circulation System integrating all demands into one is a high tech intelligent equipment to solve many air problems.

By the water pipe pre-inserted into the ceiling connected to the humility adjustment system , it intelligently adjusts the indoor environment from six dimensions, namely the temperature, humility, oxygen, cleanness and air flow, keeping the humility within the range of 40%-60% most suitable for living.

By the intelligent control panel, we do not only watch the operation of 6C Air Circulation System but also know many detailed data on the indoor air quality in real time, including the temperature, humility, PM2.5, CO2 and formaldehyde.

The best thing is it offers three pre-installations, namely Hokkaido Mode, Hawaii Mode and Vacation Mode. It deserves the name of Air Circulation System.

What assures the level of this system making the living space air clean is the exclusive technical research achievement of Panasonic - high concentration Nanoe X module.

The 6C Air Circulation System is the world's first [1] overall intelligent indoor humility control with automatic water supply and sewage. 

· Two: Health All-in-One ·

As  a nation with the culture of "God of washroom", Japanese washroom design is full of tough demands on details. Here, Panasonic Community is also equipped with all set of intelligent washroom technological experience - Health All-in-One.

The key point of this washroom is the toilet.

Are they handrail on both side? Both yes and no. If you have a careful look, you will find on one side it is a body fat detector, one the other side, it is a urine detector.

Open the cover of the toilet. There is an inductor pat on the cushion. When using the toilet, the toilet could measure six fat data and 14 urine data and upload the data to the app and the community center for health data management.

The intelligent toilet that is pride of Japan has perfect functions. It does not only offer many modes of cleaning, but also could automatically flush with the functions of sterlization.

· Three: Deep Sleep & Refreshing Waking-up System ·

Till now, we believe that all people gradually understand Yada Panasonic Community. Inside, it is a complete set of solution based on the living space. It manages the indoor environment by multiple dimensions namely lighting, water, air and sound. The design core of deep sleep and refreshing waking-up system contains the lighting, smell and sound.

As its name tells, the system could bring deep sleep and make people feel refreshing after wake-up. It works with 6C Air Circulation System to automatically manage the indoor lighting, smell and sound. When the day breaks, residents are waken up. The system helps to refresh people. When the night comes, the system is good to relax and bring deep sleep.

We do not know whether you have the experience of insomnia. According to the data of China Sleep Research Society, over 38% of Chinese are facing with the problem of insomnia. Insomnia has become one of the potential of sub-health.

The System does not only serve the elderly, but also is a must for the young. By the integrated intelligent management, it helps us to build up a regular and healthy timetable.

The bathroom and bedroom are installed IoT technology developed by Panasonic besides the health products above. Depending on intelligent control and health data management, it safeguards your health from daily details.

· Healthy Lifespan Depends on Subtle Influence Besides Sports and Exercise ·

Here, it is the time to refer to the concept of Healthy Lifespan. As far as we know, today's young generation go to the gym to keep fit. But it only maintain the health of body function.

Healthy Lifespan means the age limit to maintain normal life. It represents a comprehensive health conditions. What influences it mainly come from good lifestyle and living habits as well as subtle external environment. 

The target of "Prolong Healthy Lifespan" by Panasonic is a long-term wellness and nursing process. By creating a relatively natural and healthy living environment, it helps the residents to have positive influence in daily life.

Therefore, at Panasonic Wellness Smart House, Panasonic builds up a complete sample room which could help visitors to understand the set of plan how to prolong the healthy lifespan. Mr. Shuhei Aoyama was also invited to visit the House.

03/View of Designers: Advantages of Yada Panasonic Community

Mr. Shuhei Aoyama had high hopes to the healthcare & aged-care community that was built up based on deep cooperation between China and Japan. He experienced products at the site from the view of a designer.

Since 2019, Mr. Shuhei Aoyama has worked with Panasonic. When Panasonic launched the Healthy Space Unit, he visited Panasonic Center in Osaka.

"From the concept display then to today's Yada Panasonic Community, Mr. Shuhei Aoyama said, "in my opinion, leading technology should not be displayed exaggeratedly or obviously before our life, It should be behind our life and support us to reconnect to the natural lifestyle out of sight. For me, that is the definition of a good technology."

"So is The Deep Sleep & Refreshing Waking-up System. For example, when we go to sleep at night, it could ajust the light, temperature, sound, odor and other environmental elements to a proper state automatically. When the sun rises in the morning, residents could smell comfortable odor, hear birdcall and wake up in a natural environment. All these have been realized by technology."

Referring to the most impressive product design during this visit, Mr. Shuhei Aoyama said, "We often put varied kinds of equipment, such as the air-conditioning, humidifier and air purifier in the room. We have to turn them on one by one, which makes our life more complex. For a designer, it is the good conditions that no these machines in the space. It is a relatively natural environment. That also frees users from varied kinds of operations and brings the life back to the original status. It is one of its most important features."

He added that, "Like the integrated health toilet cover, I experienced it before when it was just a prototype. Now Panasonic has made it a product, which gave me a surprise and made me happy."

"In the future, all designers must be interfaced with artificial intelligence. In my opinion, AI does what it could do. What a designer does is what could not be replaced by AI."

Intelligent equipment is the trend. By reasonable data monitor, it could assist the designer with his work and design functions and products more suitable for daily use. The overall plan of Yada Panasonic Community undoubtedly prove this point.

04/Aging China Implies Significance to Focus on Healthy Lifespan

According to the latest Census data, the population over 60 years old has reached 18.7% of the general population with 2600 million, 13.5% of which are the people over 65 years old with 1900 million in total. That means China has entered into the aging society (according to the international standard, the proportions are 10% and 7% respectively).

We generally regard the retired and the advanced elderly people as the old group. Actually, under the influence of healthy lifespan, China has entered into the aging phase, far earlier than the ages.

Yada Panasonic Community jointly built by Panasonic and Yada does not only bring Yixing local landscape to us, but also introduce the leading health technology products and details of Japanese design. More importantly, it makes us to understand the importance of keeping healthy lifestyle to maintain healthy lifespan from the aspects of data, intelligent equipment and designs.

We recommend that you could visit the Community by yourself. It will bring you new inspiration and experience.

Panasonic Wellness Smart House: No. 76 Dongda Road, Hufu Town, Yixing, Jiangsu.

Reference:

[1] https://panasonic.cn/about/news/all/news2020110502/

（From: Japanese Design Station Wechat）