| Abstrak/Abstract |
The elderly community is one vulnerable social group whose population has increased, especially in South East Asia, including Indonesia. Unfortunately, the increasingly populated elderly group has not yet been followed by the continuous improvement of their quality of, especially in regards to wealth. Following this situation, the issues surrounding the quality of elderly life in institutional care is raising. Patients of nursing homes need social interaction with others, including with the community where the nursing home is located. However, due to the security of the elderly patients, some nursing homes especially those which are located in a relatively dense urban area, tend to protect their patients by enclosing them from the surrounding community through several spatial arrangements, such
as building fences and arranging the room orientations. This contradiction between the needs of social interaction and the security as well safety of the nursing home patients becomes twofold and continues as time progresses. This study attempts to identify the concept of social interaction between the elderly inhabitants of nursing homes and the surrounding community in an urban area in order to find a suitable recommendation for spatial implications. With two nursing homes in Yogyakarta as case studies, this study reveals that the social interaction between the patients and the community form four categories: a) Daily purchase-related activity, b) relative visit-related activity, c)
religious activity and d) physical health-related activity. In these social interactions, the threshold plays a significant role for the elderly during their daily lives in the nursing homes. The appearance of the threshold may vary. The locations of the threshold basically form the demarcation as well as the transition in three scales: 1) between the nursing home and the street, 2) between the yard and the living units, and 3) between the room and the corridor within the living units. It is also discovered that facility-sharing between the nursing home and the neighborhood plays a significant role to trigger social interaction. |
