Courtyard homes provide safe, affordable private living spaces while maintaining a sense of community. (Pixabay: Songsst)
Australia has a critical need for housing types that meet the needs of homeless older women. The Chinese Courtyard is one such model that provides safe, affordable private living space while maintaining a sense of community.
We can adapt and repurpose existing buildings in Australia to make them more affordable, socially appropriate and environmentally friendly.
Women over 45 are one of the fastest growing groups of homeless people in Australia. in 2020, an estimated 405,000 women over 45 are at risk of housing affordability pressures and becoming homeless as a result.
Given the shortage of affordable housing, an aging population, and the economic disadvantages women experience throughout their lives, this issue needs to be addressed quickly.
A simple (and obvious) solution for older women facing homelessness is to provide them with long-term access to adequate, safe, and affordable housing. So why is this problem so difficult to solve?
The latest attempts to address this problem include providing “pop-up” or “concurrent use” housing in vacant nursing homes and small houses.
“Pop-up” or “concurrent use” housing is one of the current solutions to homelessness for older women.
While both types of housing offer good short-term options, they do not create long-term housing to meet the needs of older women aging in place, nor do they provide secure lifetime tenure and a sense of belonging. All of these aspects are important to their health.
What if we adapted existing buildings and combined them with the idea of micro-housing?
The Chinese courtyard house has some important features that could be culturally adapted to Australian needs.
Adapting existing houses
Adaptive reuse of buildings involves the conversion of old spaces to new spaces. Existing buildings are repurposed to meet the needs of new residents by integrating a new set of features under the existing exterior.
This is not a new idea. Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, originally a mosque, then a church, and now a museum. Sydney’s Paddington Reservoir, which began as infrastructure, then a gas station, then ruins, and now an urban performance space.
Adaptive reuse is based on a triple consideration – economically, environmentally and socio-culturally.
Reusing existing buildings is cheaper, better for the environment, and ensures that the collective memory of a place is not erased.
To build housing suitable for older women, it is important to consider the points of age, belonging and environment.
Chinese wisdom for Australian residents
The Siheyuan type of Home comes from the traditional Confucian idea of the extended Family unit, arranged around a courtyard or series of courtyards with varying levels of privacy.
The interesting aspect of the Siheyuan layout is the highly ordered series of rooms, with private rooms arranged around open spaces and gathering halls. In Beijing today, there are an estimated 400,000 Siheyuan units remaining. About 500 of these courtyards are preserved as historical sites.
This hierarchical order of courtyards suited the housing needs of older women. It was a shared living arrangement – people lived independently but together, sharing some amenities such as open spaces and areas to gather for occasional meals.
The layout of a quadrangle usually includes an ordered series of rooms and has private living units with open spaces and common halls shared by residents.
This model may become part of the growing number of shared housing layouts.
Courtyards meet the needs of older women to maintain a close connection to the garden space, which they can also actively maintain.
The courtyard promotes social contact and exercise, as well as space for quiet contemplation. This connection to the interior landscape is important for the health of older women.
The lobby is a social place. It is a place for public events, connecting with family or friends, creative activities or listening. They can also speak for themselves and decide for themselves if they want to participate in these activities.
Another important need for older women is a place to invite family and friends to meet so they can stay in touch with the outside world. A hall where everyone can use the space at some point can be effective in meeting everyone’s needs.
Private rooms ensure the independence, security and sense of belonging that older women need. In such a personal space, the cultural and social needs of the residents are easily met.
The small luxury of having a room of one’s own should not be underestimated. Many older women rarely have this luxury. For them, this private room provides them with the necessary dignity.
Flexibility
This adaptive reuse of existing housing is not just about adapting our existing buildings, but also about adopting different cultural wisdoms and traditional practices of the past and creating a new way of living together.
Many buildings in Australia that are currently underutilised or vacant can be converted into quadrangles.
To achieve this would require policy changes and a major shift in the current developer-driven economic model. But these changes would meet many of the current needs of older women, would be good for the environment, and would provide socially accessible housing.
The private living areas, courtyards and gardens are all interconnected. (Flickr: Lorena)
As Confucius said, “There is beauty in everything, but not in everyone”.
Providing affordable housing for these women in the first place would greatly reduce the financial burden on taxpayers and service providers.
To solve homelessness, we don’t need to indulge in innovative housing models or new development, but rather, if we look hard enough, the solution lies within the fabric of our existing cities. Right under our noses, existing buildings can be used to re-invent themselves.
Samantha Donnelly is a lecturer in the School of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, and Hugo Chan is an adjunct scholar in the School of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales. This article originally appeared in The Conversation.
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