A design for a nursing skyscraper that enhances the quality of life among people suffering from dementia and invites discussion of the way society regards this affliction.

In our super-ageing society, the number of people suffering from dementia will increase dramatically in the coming years. This is happening at a time when the proportional increase in the number of over-65s is expected to double. The pressure this will put on nursing home care, which is great enough already owing to a chronic shortage of staff, will only get stronger. Besides the macro-economic issues surrounding dementia, this affliction is affecting people in personal terms and still proves difficult to talk about openly. This final-year project addresses the set of problems attendant on dementia. It introduces a new type of nursing home for people with dementia embedded in a taboo-challenging institute: an ode to old age.

Small-scale forms of dwelling are rife in elderly care these days. In time, though, we can expect a return to large-scale nursing homes, whose clustering of patients, staff and facilities can provide efficient care. This type of institute, moreover, which requires large buildings, is able to give old age a physical countenance and in this way help to break taboos. Such a building can be deployed to further social acceptance and a new way of thinking. These days young is cool and old age is something creepy and sordid. The new institute stands for a new social attitude that makes old age an equal part of life. Indeed, it is an ode to old age. Can nursing homes shake off their hospital image and evolve into an icon for the elderly? In that case the endless corridors will have to go and circulation space become space to linger.

Validation Therapy (Naomi Feil, 1982) is an accepted approached to elderly care that confirms the way people with dementia see the world as reality instead of dismissing it. In deploying this approach as a design strategy, the nursing home is placed in a new light. A nursing home based on the concept of vaildation is a place that acknowledges the inner reality of its residents and where reality as we know it has no part to play. The result is a building that guides the process of dementia and, by extension, guides its residents in the process of letting go of life so that they can find inner peace.

This guidance towards peace of mind informs the concept of disengagement. Making contact is a deliberate choice but so is taking a step back. We should stop forcing people with dementia to take part in 'our' reality, where the chaos of day-to-day life can only cause fear and confusion. So the idea of disengagement is less about making contact than about making space to distance yourself if this feels better. Disengagement from the chaos, from the people around you, from the world and, ultimately, from life itself.

Place of education: TU Eindhoven | Specialization: architecture | Tutors: Bas Molenaar, Jacob Voorthuis, Mark van der Poll