DESIGNING LIBRARIES FOR DEMENTIA

Dementia Effects Perception

Notice that design features go beyond creating a warm and friendly environment. Dementia causes problems that make color (or in this case “colour”) and contrast even more important than it generally is in interior design. Walls need to contrast with floors, or the wall might be seen as a continuation of the floor. The  library in Wakefield added a contrasting “skirting boards” to help differentiate wall from floor. (In the U.S., skirting board is better known as “baseboard”.) Color and contrast are even more important considerations when designing libraries for dementia.

Entries and exits should be clearly defined. Decorators chose the color scheme of Sandal Library so that doorways are visually different than the wall. Signage is easily recognized and legible.

Furniture

Contrast needs to go beyond flooring and paint colors. A piece of furniture should stand out from its surroundings or it may not be seen. And it should look like furniture. A chair should look like a chair. But avoid patterned fabrics. These can be stressful. Additionally, decorators at Sandal chose chairs that are easy to “get in and out of”; people with dementia can have physical difficulties beyond those that are age-related.

Restroom decor, too, should offer contrast. For example, a white toilet or sink in a white-tiled room might be missed, or at least difficult to find.

Fig. 1 An example of a poor floor covering. Dark figures in the pattern of this rug can be perceived as holes or other obstacles. The deep pile is a fall hazard.

Beware that Hole in the Floor

But contrast is not always desirable. The floor, whether it is carpet or tile, can be a pleasing color, but should not have much pattern. Fig. 1 shows a rug that makes the point. It will be a threatening thing to be avoided at all cost. Now this rug certainly isn’t something I would expect to see on the floor of any library. I use it for illustration purposes. Tile and a very low-pile commercial carpet is the rule. On the other hand, a checkerboard pattern on a tile floor is very common, and can have the same effect on someone with compromised perceptual acuity.

Now look at Fig. 2. It shows a beautiful carpet, with a low pile. But can you imagine what dementia-affected perception might make of those figures? The “blocks” on the floor might look dangerous to anyone in the right circumstance, like poor lighting. Certainly one whose visual cortex has been compromised would see them as unsafe. Trying to avoid them creates a falling hazard. Incidentally, this carpet is in the Documenta Archive, a research library in Germany.