Certification for ageing in place
Homes4Life coordinator TECNALIA – Silvia Urra Uriarte – presented the project at the ITE+3R congress, an event focused on buildings and urban refurbishment and sustainability, held in March 2019 in Leon, Spain.
Homes4Life was presented within the Round Table 1: The human profile in the retrofitting and urban regeneration interventions. The video (in Spanish) of the roundtable can be watched here.
Homes4Life partner Utrecht University – Dr. Alexander Peine – co-authored and contributed to the latest AIOTI WG05 (Smart Living Environments for Ageing Well) publication focused on Recommendations for healthy ageing solutions.
This recommendation paper entitled “IoT for Smart Living Environments” is built around these 2 strategic objectives, addressing the 3 following challenges, each of them discussed in the 3 main chapters of this report:
Homes4Life is featured in the full report which can be read here
About AIOTI, the Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation : https://aioti.eu
The Homes4Life coordinator TECNALIA – Silvia Urra Uriarte – and our partner Utrecht University – Frans Sengers – presented Homes4Life at a meeting of the D4 Action Group on Innovation for age-friendly buildings of the EIP AHA (European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing) .
The meeting was focused on the recent developments in the field of active and healthy ageing and more specifically on age-friendly environments. The event offered an opportunity to discuss age-friendly environments policies and experiences in Poland, European age-friendly housing certification, smart healthy age-friendly environments, and the future of EIP AHA beyond 2020.
Homes4Life was presented in the 2nd day session focused on Smart Living and Housing. Several questions emerged from the presentation and were discussed with the audience, in particular on ideas about how to eventually employ the Homes4Life certification scheme and in relation with our future pilot projects.
Our Homes4Life partner Università Politecnica delle Marche (Sara Casaccia) presented Homes4Life within the Your Future Festival – 13-18 May 2019 – an event focused on European Science & Research.
Download the slides presented at Your Future Festival
Homes4Life partners EUROCARERS (Nadia KAMEL) and ECTP (Alexis DAVID) attended the Open Workshop | Mandate M/420 and prEN 17210, on June 5th, Brussels.
Views from selected stakeholders were presented such as the European Disability Forum, the European Consumer Voice in Standardisation, International Union of Architects and the European Network for Accessible Tourism etc.
PrEN 17210 is a voluntary European standard that provides functional requirements and recommendations for an accessible and usable built environment – following a design for all approach, including persons with disabilities.
Legislators can choose to make reference to a standardisation document or to part of it (e.g. in regulations). The European standard is a stand-alone document with only functional requirements. In parallel countries can choose to follow Technical Report 1 – which provides more detailed technical specification.
The process for standardisation is a lengthy one. This particular standard saw the participation from 34 countries and active participation from national standardisation bodies from AT, BE, DK, FR , DE, IE, IT, NO, ES, SE, CH, UK. In terms of getting this standard officially approved and adopted, there is between 18 April 2019 to 11 July 2019 an ongoing enquiry vote i.e. National vote via CEN and Cenelec members
The standard can be used:
Is based to a great extent on ISO 21542 and where not sufficient supplemented with references to other standards
Homes4Life was presented by our partner R2M Solution – Régis Decorme – at Sustainable Places 2019, Cagliari.
The project was featured within the “Innovative Construction” track of the conference. The full agenda of the conference can be consulted by clicking the picture below.
Our partner AGE Platform – Estelle Huchet and Nhu Tram – presented Homes4Life at the International Social Housing Festival 2019 in Lyon, France.
Read below the pitch of the project prepared by AGE Platform for ISHF 2019 :
What is the purpose of innovations if they cannot be scale up, and make a change in the life of the many? Certification is too often seen as a straightjacket hindering innovation, disregarding local specificities and preventing the development of personalized solutions. The Homes4Life project aims at developing a European certification scheme for ageing in place. Our consortium of nine European partners is grasping expertise from various domains, from architects to social scientists, civil society representatives and engineers. We are studying how to give a boost to the development of housing options that would accommodate our changing lifestyle choices, needs and preferences as we age – so we can stay at home, until the end. A multi-stakeholder cooperation is critical in that context as we want our certification scheme to respect the various cultural contexts and field of work in which it may be implemented. We want people to feel at home, to feel safe, to feel independent at any age. If these feelings may translate into different construction realities, some common grounds start to become known as we travel Europe to exchange with various stakeholders, and interact with different types of households. This conversation will be a governing principle of our project – not for the sake of it, but because it is the only way to ensure our certification scheme strikes the good balance between scaling up innovations, remaining adaptable enough. We are sure you have tons of good ideas; so we invite you to come to us and make sure those do not remain the privilege of a happy few.
Dementia causes problems with memory that can make it difficult to carry out everyday activities, for example dressing, cooking, remembering appointments and taking medication. As a result, people living with dementia (PLwD) require varying levels of support to complete everyday activities and to maintain a level of independence. If nothing is done, this loss of independence, can have huge negative impact on PLwD, and may cause confusion, anxiety, embarrassment, or depression. Additionally, this decreasing ability to carry out daily activities can cause stress to family careers who worry about the person’s safety and well-being. Connected devices designed to support PLwD, in particular Smart Homes, may provide an opportunity to alleviate the burden faced by PLwD and their carers.
This Summer School has been designed for early career researchers and delegates who are focusing on the research and development of Smart Homes and health services for PLwD. Delegates are members of Public or private Organizations, interested in the Connected Health domain, willing to take part at the Summer School and parallel strategic initiatives events.
Further details and registration at : http://www.connectedhealth-summerschool.org
Meet our colleagues Estelle Huchet & Nhu Tram (AGE Platform) to discuss the Homes4Life vision at the Innovation Track of ISHF 2019 – the International Social Housing Festival in Lyon, France.
Further details and registration at :
https://www.ishf2019.com/fr/events/parcours-innovation/
A few additional seats have just been released for the upcoming Homes4Life Stakeholders workshop, 11th June, Brussels.
Register at : https://www.eventbrite.com/e/homes4life-certification-for-ageing-in-place-stakeholder-workshop-tickets-59355291274
Please note, the event location has changed !
New venue: Science 14 – 14b Rue de la Science – Brussels
