A Study on the relationship in spatial structure of senior Center in Seoul

서울시 노인종합복지관의 공간 구조적 연결 관계에 관한 연구

The percentage of senior citizens is increasing in Korea and it is expected to become an "aging society". Problems with the elderly are becoming a big concern, such as physical and mental illness, losing their jobs and having difficulties at home. But, the silver generation, as they are being known, has changed a lot these days. With the aid of medical developments, the elderly's lifespan has become longer, making them more independent and active. Senior Welfare Center's are places where the elderly can spend their golden years in comfort, meaningfully. Senior Welfare Center's these days provide many different programs, which naturally lead to an increase in elderly users. With the rise in welfare centers and users, research on the subject also grew. As this topic has only recently become an issue, there were not many spatial structure studies considering elderly movement. Therefore, there should be spatial structure research that considers older users space awareness and how it can be managed effectively. The goal of this study is to present basic resources for providing a comfortable senior welfare center for elders. This will be based on quantitative analysis derived from spatial structure research along with special construction characteristics based on the institution's general plan. As a research method, Senior Welfare Center's will be categorized into corridor type, hall type, and hybrid types which then be reproduced into a j-graph. Based on this, special structure characteristics and connection links will be comprehended. Then the connection link will be analyzed based on the space syntax result calculated from each type's integration, connectivity, control value, and intelligibility. The analysis result shows that Senior Welfare Center j-graph's average arrangement is hybrid>corridor>hall types. Those elders lacking awareness need easily perceivable spatial structure's and hall type's would be the best choice to increase their awareness as it has high articulation. However, hall type's would be difficult to construct with the size increase, so hybrid type would be the next logical solution. Space with relatively high articulation will need to be planned in hybrid type's where rest areas can be created within the halls in the Welfare Center in connection to its corridors.