Abstract
In elderly housing facilities where are elderly living facilities, the importance of outdoor space for psychological healing and stability, health improvement and environmental improvement is increasing, since elderly people suffer from depression and are hostile to these facilities. This study aims to identify if outdoor spaces in elderly housing facilities in Seoul have environments appropriate for the elderly and to suggest problems and improvements. For achieving this purpose, nine elderly housing facilities in Seoul were chosen and a field survey was conducted targeting five facilities with outdoor spaces. Based on the previous studies, the concepts of elderly housing facility and outdoor space were organized. Then, a checklist was drawn up as a framework of analysis for evaluating the present state of outdoor spaces of elderly housing facilities and space planning, and improvements were explored. It was found that elderly housing facilities in Seoul had good connectivity and accessibility to the surrounding areas, but there were few supporting facilities, except for resting places. Also, the result of analysis of the present state showed that most elderly housing facilities were located in high lands and the safety of elderly people was being threatened while moving, due to the absence of handrails. In conclusion, it is considered that outdoor space of elderly housing facility should be planned in consideration of safety, affordance and cognition out of the standards of researcher's evaluation tool.