Intergenerationally Enriched Environments: Insights from Research and Practice Generations United Wa

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Intergenerationally Enriched Environments
Insights from Research and Practice Generations
United (Washington, D.C.) Sept. 16, 2005,
1045-1215 p.m.

• Matt Kaplan, Department of Agricultural
  Extension Education, Penn State University
• Minyoung Leo, College of Architecture, Texas AM
  University
• Michael Layne, College of Design, North Carolina
  State University (Raleigh, NC)
• Chris Murray, MurrayCo (Charlottesville, VA)
• Vicki Rosebrook, Executive Director, Marilyn
  Gordon Macklin Intergenerational Institute

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The Human-Environment Interface
Our Meeting Place Today
The Environment
The Human
Drawing from Environmental Psychology. Bringing
the design disciplines and the social science
disciplines together.
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Learning Objectives

• Gain a greater sense of design literacy for
  planning indoor and outdoor environments for
  multi-generational groups.
• Become more familiar with research and practice
  focused on assessing/improving the impact of the
  physical environment on intergenerational
  engagement and cooperation.

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Ecological Psychology

• Focuses on settings and their interrelationship
  with individual and group behaviors
• People exist in an environmental niche that is
  the result of a persons capabilities to act in
  certain ways and the characteristics of the
  physical and social environment that provide
  possibilities for action (affordances)
  (Kulikowich Young, 2001 Michael Laynes
  dissertation research)

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Ecological Psychology - More Key Ideas

• Behavior Settings help to analyze
  environment-behavior interactions and include
  behavior and objects involved with the behavior
  like furniture, activity materials, etc. (Barker,
  1968)
• Careful examination of behavior across space
  and over time can also help to understand
  intergenerational relationships as they evolve.

(From Kuehne Kaplan presentation at GU
conference in 2003.)
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Does the environment afford opportunities for
intergenerational interaction?
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The physical environment provides clues for
understanding the intergenerational dynamic

• Certain places are associated with particular
  characteristics of human interaction
• Kitchen Table conversations
• Front Porch meetings
• Environmental cues encourage/
• discourage certain modes of
• interaction
• murals
• photos
• notices
• flyers
• rules

My Home Harumi Tokyo, Japan
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How do we want to construct our basic
institutions?
Schools without walls -- Involving local
farmers in the school curriculum
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Photos from Grandparents UniversityUW-Extensio
n Family Living Programs and WAA
Creating different kinds of institutions
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Intergenerational folkspractitioners/
specialists/ researchers

• Were great at focusing on issues related to
  communication and relationships.
• We need more help in understanding the physical
  (environmental) domain of interpersonal contact
  and engagement.