Most older adults spend much more time at home than in their younger years. It is at the time of old age when change is so physically and mentally part of our daily lives that we need home most.  Home has to support our sense of self, our sense of safety and our sense of purpose. Yet, most housing options commonly monotonized through design and regulations fall short of these demands.

“A Day In The Life” is a joint video project between the Family Service Agency of San Francisco (FSA) and ‘At Home With Growing Old’ (AHWGO) that tries to shed light on the role of ‘home’ in the life of older adults and thus improve social and spatial design solutions. Home is the protagonist of this project with a diverse group of senior citizens documenting their day-to-day environment with an easy to use video camera and commenting on their day-to-day life experiences.

The project team is multi-generational and multi-disciplinary, with senior citizens behind the camera, Paige Hansen, a young video producer (http://prhansen.com/video.html) and student at BAVC in San Francisco as editor and Jarmin Christine Yeh, a PHD candidate in medical anthropology at UCSF as interviewer.

Project leaders are Cathy Spensley, senior division director and Erica Solway program director at FSA and Susanne Stadler, architect/founder of AHWGO.

A trailer of the project will be presented on October 6 as part of the ‘OneAway campaign’ sponsored by the National Council on Aging. For more information, please see www.oneaway.org/ca.