Elderly people & warmth

Challenge: Elderly people’s health in a warmer Stockholm
Challenge giver: Stockholm County Administrative Board
Solutions: 1) Awareness & Automatic Warning System 2) Green Backyard Network
Concepts: 1) A brochure for raising awareness about the dangers of hot temperatures and a digital warning system personally alerting individuals about heat waves 2) An interconnected green oasis of balconies
Challenge area: Ageing population, health

Participants in Openlab's master's course, dressed in green, with a cardboard prototype of the idea Green Backyard Network.

ABSTRACT

This report is an outline of the work with the OpenLab challenge, ‘Elderly people’s health in a warmer Stockholm’, that was provided by the Stockholm County Administrative Board. A warmer climate in Stockholm results in a greater risk of more frequent heat waves. The elderly people are more vulnerable and sensitive to heat.

The report explains the different phases in the Design Thinking method and the work that has been carried out by the team in each phase. The Design Thinking method is a user-centered process. We start by defining the user needs, and solutions are developed and tested based on that. The first part of the report covers the first iteration where the team worked with a number of different concepts. The second part describes the later phase, where two concepts were chosen and developed further. The two final concepts delivered addresses two needs, the need to generate awareness about heat waves and the need to create a green cool space for socializing. This is provided by a number of different types of brochures to elderly and a Green Backyard Network.

Project presentation video

A project by: Anna Hesselgren, Bilal Flerfel, Carina Jacob, Emelie Falk, Sai Lakshmi, Sandeep Jakkampudi, Shruthi Prakash