The Right to Choose Democratising Older People's Housing Design trhough Mass Customisation

Mass customisation design is used in this study by developing a transformation shape grammar. The shape grammar is inferred based on design solutions done by different designers to ensure a variety of options and approaches is incorporated. The design solutions are then analysed to identify the common design principles that were used in the house transformations, and that lead to good design alterations that can be implemented in other similar spatial compositions and use scenarios. This process makes it possible to move from designing by speculation to designing in a formalised creative environment. At the beginning of May 2021, a workshop was organised to develop a transformation grammar for adapting single-family houses into co-housing for older people. It involved eight students that worked in teams of two. Four typical single-family floor plans were selected from different regions in Slovenia. Each team was given three different scenarios of older people’s co-housing communities and was instructed to apply them to different houses to ensure that all possible combinations of scenario versus house type were covered. Through emerging designs, we identified that solutions also need to be defined according to different difficulty levels of refurbishment that can potentially cater to different needs, desires, and financial restraints. This additional level of customisation makes the system more democratic and inclusive. This study illustrates how through developing spatial solutions as well as analyzing them and incorporating them in design strategies through a shape grammar, the design-driven research technique can be continuously informed, enriched, and re-shaped.