Abstract
Elderly welfare housing refers to a residential facility with diverse medical and welfare services for cohabitation of elderly. Especially, community shared spaces in the elderly welfare housing plays an important role as a place for community and leisure activities that enhance vitality of elderly life. The purpose of this study was to investigate types, planning characteristics and actual utilization of community shared spaces in for-profit elderly welfare housing. Eight for-profit elderly welfare housing facilities in Seoul and Gyeonggi province were selected for this study and categorized into small-, medium- and large-scale facilities based on the number of housing units. Community shared spaces in the elderly welfare housing were classified into six space types: social space, education space, exercise space, medical space, convenience space and leisure space. Findings are as follows. Small-scale elderly welfare housing facilities with less than 100 housing units had fitness centers, clinics, restaurants, convenience stores and hobby rooms which were required by law. All community shared spaces were planned on a single level. Fitness centers was found the most frequently used while the other spaces were not used very frequently. Medium-scale facilities with 100 to 299 housing units had multi-purpose halls, libraries, swimming pools, indoor and/or outdoor driving ranges, physical therapy centers, saunas, karaokes and so on. Most community shared spaces were found frequently used. Large-scale facilities with 300 or more housing units had religion rooms, community halls, hair salons, pharmacies, etc. In most facilities, community shared spaces were planned in distributed locations.