Enjoying old age in the third stage of life in your own home or within your own four walls

Provincial Government of Lower Austria - Department F2 Housing Promotion/Housing Research

Studio Calas Market municipality Schweiggers

The content and objectives of this research project are based on four pillars:

1. age-appropriate, barrier-free conversion of existing owner-occupied houses and apartments
2. accompanying thermal refurbishment of these properties
3. accompanying heating replacement based on EE
4. case study “Center development Schweiggers”, age-appropriate, dense living including interlinking of the results regarding age-appropriate living between dense living and owner-occupied homes.

In this research project, we want to comprehensively analyze the “age-appropriate renovation” of owner-occupied homes in Lower Austria, raise awareness and get things moving, thus making a significant contribution to reducing the need for care, increasing the quality of life in old age and stimulating the regional construction industry. The main target groups are homeowners in the transition to the third stage of life, housing developers, care services, building and social representatives of Lower Austrian municipalities and tradespeople.

Methodology and implementation:
For the elaboration of the above research fields, an interdisciplinary involvement of different experts and actors is necessary and given by the research partners. We want to integrate existing knowledge (www.ifs.at, Interkomm Waldviertel - Community Nurses) as well as all necessary stakeholders, starting with homeowners at the transition to the “third half of life”, care services and caring relatives as well as planners and companies from the main and ancillary building trades. There will be two to three meetings of steering groups to be formed during the course of the research project. The applicant is Sonnenplatz Großschönau GmbH. It has extensive research expertise and good contacts with various stakeholders. It is supported by the consortium partner “Studio Calas” for the implementation of the Schweiggers part of the project and for planning presentations of age-appropriate conversions in single and two-storey homes as well as the IIBW Institute - Dr. Wolfgang Amann, Wallenberger & Linhard Regionalberatung - Josef Wallenberger and a graphics and video agency as third-party providers.

Intended results:
The aim is to create transferable models for “enjoyment of old age in the third stage of life” in owner-occupied homes as well as exemplary models for dense living. These include the creation of checklists, including measures for age-appropriate living, divided into trades and with sample offers for each field of action. Based on this, a model floor plan for a single-storey and a two-storey house will be created. Affected tradespeople and service providers will be trained and motivated, and transferable recommendations will be developed and disseminated. A short video will be used to summarize the results in such a way that they can be quickly absorbed by the target groups concerned and motivate them to take action. As part of BIOEM Großschönau, structured interviews will be used to test how the target groups concerned can be motivated. Furthermore, we want to estimate the investment amount for average residential properties of the residents in the affected age cohort 60+ in Lower Austria or of e.g. 15% of this entire group and differentiate as follows:

• Costs and benefits for age-appropriate refurbishment only
• Costs and benefits including thermal refurbishment and heating replacement.

In view of the rapid demographic development, we also want to develop economically cost-reducing recommendations for decision-makers. Using the “Schweiggers center development” case study, an applied and implementation-oriented development concept for dense, innovative forms of housing for age-appropriate living with dignity, including interlinking with public functions in inner-city locations, will also be drawn up. Furthermore, the case study of Schweiggers will be used to examine what is necessary to bring people from qualitatively difficult circumstances into age-appropriate communal living close to the town center. Both approaches will be compared and contrasted with the conventional approach of retirement and nursing homes in terms of costs. The results will be disseminated in the project as an example for Lower Austria.