• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About me
  • Contact

Joel Solkoff

High-tech housing for the poor, disabled and elderly

Chinese (Simplified)EnglishFrenchGermanHebrewItalianPolishPortugueseRussianSpanish
  • Disability and Elderly Issues
  • Food
  • Architects for Change
  • Joel Solkoff’s Resume
  • Joel’s Books
You are here: Home / Disability and Elderly Issues / Navigating

Navigating

August 8, 2012 by joel Leave a Comment

Oh, a storm is threat’ning/ My very life today/ If I don’t get some shelter/Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away/

–“Gimme Shelter” by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

The site has two central parts:

I. The theme

II. Digressions (anything not related directly to the theme; for the purpose of the site my daughters Joanna and Amelia [you may ask “You really regard your family as a digression?), my stories, essays, career achievements, poems, and other flights of fancy and whimsy are off message.

Now and then being a nerd, as I am, can get in the way or as the Tibetan Book of the Dead notes sometimes you (by which I mean I) become so intense that the intensity becomes “intense pride, and the pride turns into an ice-cold environment which reinforced by self –satisfaction begins to get into the system. It does not allow us to dance or smile or hear the music.” At the risk of not hearing the music, I will leave you, dear reader, to find order in Diversions as you will. Right now, the task at hand is the order the theme.

++++

Navigating the theme: No shelter from the storm

  1. Where do I want to go?

To a neighborhood which must be developed to serve as a global model for providing independent living so elderly and disabled individuals can age in place.

  1. What would the neighborhood consist of?

a)      It would consist of an experimental residence for an individual or an individual family. The example of the Blueroof Experimental Cottage in McKeesport, PA is a good example. The cottage consists of a one story residence built on inexpensive land in a downtown burned out section of town where rotting buildings could be razed and a community developed.

b)      The individual residence could be built out of factory housing (the fashionable term for mobile home) where sensors and other off-the-shelf technology can be embedded in the walls to monitor and protect the resident. Including building the foundation, each residence can be constructed in three days.

c)      Technology in the residence would include:

  • Security system to protect elderly and disabled residents in high-crime areas such as exist throughout the Rust Belt of Pennsylvania—where the neighborhood would gradually change to a family friendly area attracting economic growth.
  • Motion detectors to monitor falls throughout the residence, especially high risk areas such as the shower.
  • Computer voice simulation which combined with a wireless communication system can have, in effect, the walls of the building calling family or other emergency services for help.
  • Monitoring devices to detect, for example, whether the refrigerator has been opened and to call for help after an adjusted period of time. Example of a computer generated call, “Hello, your grandmother has not opened her refrigerator in over 24 hours. You might want to look in on her.”
  • Remote medical monitoring, including taking blood pressure and other health measurements and transmitting the results automatically to a physician’s office.
Blueroof”s trial pill dispenser which monitors whether the resident has taken each required pill and after computer simulated warnings, reports failure to do so.
  • Computer terminals and other equipment to provide the resident with job training (one is never too old to learn) and work opportunities from home.

d)      A research facility at a major university, such as Penn State, where the Immersive Construction (ICon) lab develops a 3-D model of the experimental model so stakeholders can suggest design changes.

 

Stakeholders would include:

  • Prospective residents of future neighborhood (or elsewhere) housing
  • Members of the architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) community
  • Caregivers

The research facility would also be able to process data collected at the experimental facility, such as remote medical monitoring and activities of daily living (ADL) so future construction can benefit.

e)      Creation of an inter-generational accessible community with shopping, recreation, and other services which make a community a community.

Stay tuned for further navigational aids which link posts on this site to the issues raised here and which answers the question: Why is creation of a new kind of neighborhood (with a variety of other options to be presented) so critical to dealing with the housing shortage throughout the world as the largest generation in history begins to retire in an environment where a previous generation of elderly and disabled individuals (including, of course, veterans) are so poorly served at a great expense to society and at a loss of dignity among people whose talents are not being developed adequately.]

++++

I tell you love, sister, it’s just a kiss away/ It’s just a kiss away….

–“Gimme Shelter” by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nU4aiqvyt4&feature=watch_response

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Disability and Elderly Issues Tagged With: ADL, AEC, Blueroof Experimental Cottage, design, independent living, Joanna, McKeesport, PA, Pennsylvania, Rust Belt, veterans

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Current

Disability bathroom design

September 3, 2020 By joel

Covid 19 has accelerated the need for a new utilitarian architecture: Architecture for the vulnerable ( like me)

August 19, 2020 By joel

Covid-19 Architects: “We Who Are About to Die Salute You”

August 6, 2020 By joel

Covid 19 impasse: Why architects need to know how a member of the US Congress must be expelled by the end of the month and how that relates to building emergency housing at a time when its absence is deadly and dangerous

July 23, 2020 By joel

John Wayne don't run away

Rain: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

July 5, 2020 By joel

Theo van Gogh’s The Interview

June 27, 2020 By joel

Recent

  • Ani Ma’Amin: This is what I believe
  • March March from The Chicks: My Personal Anthem
  • 建筑师注意:美国新冠状病毒死亡人数将会激增;你们必须为穷人建造住房
  • I am now a card carrying member of the National Organization for Women
  • God is not on President Trump’s Side; God is on my side
  • The late great James Baldwin on racism in America
  • COVID-19 Updated Information
  • Sensuous Françoise Hardy, Sixties icon, is now 76 years old
  • Mandarin Chinese numbers 1 to 10
  • FOOD: When leading means following the crowd
  • US Representative in Congress Val Demings, Democrat, Florida must be our next Vice President. Must be.
  • Alizée
  • Zimbabwe Last Month: People are dying
  • Make sure the Calgery Stampede is up and running on July first, 2020
  • My Hebrew teacher Mama was born in Louisville Kentucky with the name on her birth certificate:”Muriel Magdalena Pellicia”
  • Cher extremely alive
  • French rock goddess is a protégée of Isadora Duncan
  • Attention Architects: US COVID-19 Deaths Will Skyrocket; You Must Build Housing for the Poor
  • Passover Message to my Fellow Congregants Ohev Sholom, Williamsport PA
  • Perhaps the World Ends Here by The Poet Laureate of the United States
  • My drop dead enthusiastic review of The Meritocracy Trap

Links

Blogroll
  • 1. PHOENIX REHAB1. PHOENIX REHAB With the help of the gifted Alicia Spence, I begin to walk.

  • 2. SMART SPACES FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING2. SMART SPACES FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING "The demographics of baby boomer aging over the next decade foreshadow great economic, political and cultural changes that could overwhelm many developed countries," said Richard Behr, founding director of the Center.

  • 3. IMMERSIVE CONSTRUCTION (ICon) LAB3. IMMERSIVE CONSTRUCTION (ICon) LAB My home in virtual reality, the ICon lab shows 3D and 4D (the fourth dimension is Time) models on 3 eight-foot hight screens; when the lights go off, put on the 3-D glasses.

  • 4. AMIGO MOBILITY4. AMIGO MOBILITY CEO Al Thieme created the first Power Operated Vehicle (POV) scooter. Most manufacturers separate their battery chargers from the scooter. You can plug an Amigo right into an electric socket .

  • 5. T & B MEDICAL5. T & B MEDICAL "Travis and Barb Barr, the 'T' and 'B' behind T & B Medical, Inc. have one goal in mind...to attend to every client's individual" mobility and durable equipment needs. I am a continual customer and recommend T&B highly--HIGHLY.

  • 6. INVACARE6. INVACARE Invacare is the world's leading manufacturer of wheelchairs, bariatric equipment, disability scooters, respiratory products and other homecare products.

  • ACCESSIBILITY FROM APPLEACCESSIBILITY FROM APPLE For the disability community, computer technology creates the ability to engage in computer design of aging-in-place housing.

  • CAREGIVER VILLAGECAREGIVER VILLAGE Using a virtual reality world, Caregiver Village improve the lives of family caregivers. Second Life, eat your heart out.

  • EMAIL MEEMAIL ME I once had a boss who loved focus groups. One afternoon at a shopping mall, readers of my newsletter told me EXACTLY what they thought, not knowing I was behind the one-way mirror. Please do the same.

  • HME NEWSHME NEWS HME News is the monthly business newspaper for 17,000 home medical equipment providers.

  • McKEESPORTMcKEESPORT "The decrease in the population since the 1940s is attributable to the general economic malaise that descended upon the region when the steelmaking industry moved elsewhere. The major employer WAS the National Tube Works, a manufacturer of steel pipes.

  • MONONGAHELA RIVERMONONGAHELA RIVER George Washington crossed the Monongahela into McKeesport to bring rum to the his friend, Queen Alliquippa, a Seneca Indian ruler. This was during the French and Indian Wars, Remember them?

  • NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

  • PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION OF REHABILITATION FACILITIES (PARF)PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION OF REHABILITATION FACILITIES (PARF) PARF represents the Commonwealth's premier facilities serving individuals with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. Traditionally, the highlight of the disability community is the annual conference at the Nittany Lion Inn at the Penn State campus

  • YOUGHIOGHENY RIVERYOUGHIOGHENY RIVER McKeesport is where the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers meet. Fresh fish like the Walleye are back at the Youghiogheny, now that factories that created jobs are no longer polluting the river.

Previous Posts

Tags

Addison Court Amelia Altalena Solkoff Amelia Solkoff Amigo Mobility Architectural Engineering assistive technology blind Blueroof Technologies cancer Central Pennsylvania Centre County design featured-grid Helen Keller HME News Isadore Solkoff Joanna Joanna Solkoff Joel Solkoff John Bertoty John Messner kidney cancer McKeesport Medicaid Medicare Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Miriam Pell Schmerler Miss Sullivan New York City North Carolina PA Penn State Pennsylvania power chairs President Obama Robert Walters Sarah Schmerler scooter Sonali Kumar Spain State College United States University Park Virtual reality Wikipedia

Footer

Recent

  • In the age of the coronavirus, remembering the New York City of my youth
  • 1971 birthday letter to my father
  • If by Rudyard Kipling
  • Grandfather (that’s me) relocating to NYC to save my life at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
  • Why I relate ending hunger in US America to writing about my cancer survival for The New York Times
  • My love hate relationship with The New York Times 2018
  • Radio hate monger of the 1930s Father Coughlin returns to Fox News
  • A fine romance with no kisses
  • The US Needs a New Capitol City: Covid Agenda Item
  • We who are about to die…or architecture

Subscribe

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 50 other subscribers

Cart

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.