earticle

영어

As of the end of 2023, the aging phenomenon in Korea is serious, and single-person households aged 70 or older account for approximately 1.95 million households, or 19.76% of all single-person households. This number is expected to more than double in the next 30 years. This means that a structural and social change is needed in which society, not families, should support the elderly. The background and purpose of this study are to analyze the functions and spatial composition of senior centers Senior centers are expanding from simple leisure spaces to regional networks that discover and support vulnerable groups in blind spots of welfare. Senior centers are expected to make an important contribution to the creation of senior-friendly cities in the future as main spaces where the elderly can engage in leisure and social activities. This study conducted a field survey of senior welfare centers in Gyeongbuk province to analyze the number of users and the size of the centers. The results are summarized as follows. First, the spatial composition of the senior welfare centers is mainly comprised of living rooms, kitchens, inner rooms, bathrooms, entrances, storerooms, and boiler rooms. Among these, kitchens and living rooms are considered to be sufficiently separated spatially. Additionally, there is a trend towards planning bathrooms and inner rooms as gender-segregated spaces. Second, the analysis showed that the combined ratio of living rooms and kitchens was the highest, followed by inner rooms and bathrooms. Finally, the average unit area by spatial function is shown in Table 1. Overally, the average unit area for male elderly populations was higher than that for female elderly populations. This suggests that there are more female elderly populations than male elderly populations in senior welfare centers.