Abstract
Due to increasing awareness about the risk which will be caused by fast aging of population, the importance of aging friendly environment including housing has been paid much attention both individually and socially. In this regard, recently, in Korea, diverse elderly living facilities have increased in its number. Because of little experience, however, there have not been enough holistic understanding about aging friendly housing. Accordingly, most previous literature which introduced elderly housing to Korean society have translated differently, thereby caused more confusion. To facilitate communication about aging friendly housing, clear and consistent definition of its type and comprehensive range needs to be delineated. The purpose of this study is to classify various elderly housing alternatives in architecturally understandable way. This study was proceeded by content analysis of existing literature on elderly housing environment. A comprehensive review on the concept and existing classification of elderly housing was done prior to main analysis of translated Korean words. After classifying the Korean words of definition, systematic classification which focused on two important criteria of determining physical characteristics, such as space sharing degree and intentional plannedness was delineated and suggested. This research shows the first step toward the theoretical foundation for elderly housing classification.
