The elderly comprise one of the most sensitive social groups representing a large percentage of the population.

What motivated us towards researching the specific topic was to find out how and to what extend could, architectural manipulations and design in general, contribute in raising living standards for the people of the Third Age. Our research field ranges from the study of architectural elements and manipulations related to outdoor spaces and large scale public buildings up to the infrastructural and functional characteristics of a common residence. In specific, our main areas of research were dimensioning, lighting, choice of materials, various technological systems as well as fundamental principles of design towards a more functional and pleasant environment for the elderly.

Our goal, through this research, was to come up with new and innovative ideas to help this very sensitive and much neglected –by the designing process- group, focusing mainly on residential interior spaces. At first, we divided the three main residential spaces: (the living room – kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom) which are represented by cubes of various sizes. What we wanted to achieve was to design typical spaces into which we integrated elements and techniques aiming at making them friendlier towards the elderly. These spaces are integrated into an animation movie and presented through a Virtual Reality mask. So anyone can browse our work and learn interactively about all the modifications we recommend for designing elderly-friendly spaces. While wearing the mask, one can walk through any of the aforementioned spaces, look around and get a very realistic viewpoint about it, as if they were inside it.