Designing for People with Alzheimer’s Disease: The Case of Halk Vakfı Senior Care Center, Iskele, North Cyprus

This thesis focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive and permanent type of dementia where changes in the brain or cognitive capability occurs leading to impairment of memory. As the physical and social environments of these people become more demanding to tackle over time, a dementia-friendly indoor and outdoor environment can help people with Alzheimer’s reach their full potential, gradually increasing the quality of life for patients, their families and staff. Designing for people with Alzheimer’s requires the architect be knowledgeable about patient’s needs and capabilities, the social and cultural activities they can engage in, as well rules and regulations relating to design standards. Within this perspective, the thesis aims to construct a linkage between Alzheimer’s disease and necessary criteria that should be considered for the design of senior care centers, where Alzheimer’s patients are usually taken care of as well as other elderly. For this purpose, the research emphasizes important findings from the literature review relating to the characteristics and stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and examines various national and universal design guidelines on how to create senior care centers for people suffering from AD. The literature review also includes detailed recommendations on how to design appropriate indoor and outdoor spaces for AD patients. The third chapter comprises two precedents/best practice examples from around the world, the “VA Illiana Health Care System Community Living Center” in Danville, USA and Hogeweyk Dementia village in the Netherlands designed solely for people with Alzheimer’s disease who come from different iv countries. The fourth chapter is the case study analysis where Halk Vakfı Senior care center in Iskele, North Cyprus is reviewed on the basis of criteria formed previously. Then, the findings of the analysis is presented in chapter five, where some proposals are suggested for improving the weaknesses discovered in the center so that a better quality environment can be created both for people with Alzheimer’s, their families and staff. All in all, this thesis aims to emphasize the importance of creating suitable living conditions for seniors who suffer from Alzheimer’s, through the application of design guidelines so that appropriate indoor and outdoor spaces can be created for them. This is an effort to generate more awareness on AD so that conditions in care centers can be improved relating to the physical space quality as well as social and cultural activities that can benefit the patients. Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, Universal design principles, Senior care center building design, Indoor and Outdoor Space organization.