The Search for Inspiration

My greatest difficulty when designing the elderly room was inspiration. I did not know where to get my inspirations from. My entire coursework is about the different stages in life, like what each stage is all about and the general characteristics of people in these stages. My childhood room is about being natural and it's organic, and my adulthood room is about being burdened by the different aspects in life and thus losing freedom and becoming rigid. I was once a child, so I know what it's like. I'm almost an adult, so I know some things, and I can imagine some things. But, I'm far from being an elderly, and I don't know much about the elderly!! I can't seem to capture the mindset of the elderly. What exactly do they do with their time? What do their lives revolve around now that their prime time has passed? What do they think about all the time? I hadn't a clue.

I didn't know what were the general characteristics of life as an elderly. So it was purely based on imagination and gut feeling. First I did research, blind research. I simply Googled 'elderly' and scrolled randomly, waiting for inspiration to hit me. It helped a little, but not much. Soon I thought of some things. Maybe I could give the room different themes like the '60s, or the '70s. Or maybe I could use old technology to create furniture, old technology like gramophones. Still, the categories were really broad, I needed something more specific. Not all elderly come from the '60s, not all elderly reminiscence about their pasts.. It was seriously diverse, to me at least.

In the end, I decided to just go with the flow - no definite theme. I would use some daily objects as inspiration when designing furniture, and then give a certain 'old age'/'antique' feeling to the room. The idea of using daily objects came from Rene Magritte's "Personal Values" (below).



Though her usage of daily objects didn't serve a realistic purpose, like you can't sleep on the bed if the comb is there, I, on the other hand, would create furniture out of daily objects that serve a realistic purpose. Example, maybe I could transform a shoe into a chair?

After awhile, I started to find a colour scheme for this room. The childhood room was cheerful and earthly, and the adult room was minimalist (sort of), just a combination of black and white and maybe a 3rd colour that wasn't dull (red/blue/yellow/green/purple?). I also needed to know what sort of textures or materials I might use for the elderly room. With the desired texture/material in mind, it allows me to design furniture accordingly. For this aspect, I immediately thought of the Old French/Victorian/Baroque era. When I look at a room designed in the Victorian/Baroque style, it feels warm, comfortable, inviting...






Feels luxurious, and commands respect as though its royalty. There seems to be common traits in rooms that are designed in such a way. Traits such as.. intricate carvings and details on each furniture. There never seems to be a plain surface, everything is curved in or out, like a path that has been walked on before. The beds in these bedrooms are also kind of exaggerated, the duvets enhance the magnificence of the already-fancy headboards, and it appears really majestic. All these, together with the addition of a lavish rug and a posh chandelier, seem to highlight olden beauty? If I were to link it with the concept of the elderly, I think they matched relatively well.

However, as grand as Victorian rooms were, and as much as I liked the idea of rooms that command respect, it didn't fit a 100% with my concept of what an elderly is like. I feel that, having lived a long life full of ups and downs, an elderly would probably wish to settle down, tone down the excitement in their lives, and slow down the pace of life. To them, many things in live probably would be like, 'Oh, been there, done that', and not much amazes them anymore. So, to counter this problem, and if I really want to use the Victorian idea, I would have to simplify the intricacies until it fits into my frequency, until it's exactly what I want.

Before, I didn't have any direction and I didn't know what I wanted, so it was hard to get going and I felt like I was lagging behind in my prep work. Afterwards, I produced a somewhat solid concept of what kind of elderly room I want. I want simplified Victorian, with bits of everyday objects infused into it, so as to show that the elderly are living the end of their lives and have probably experienced a bit of most things in life.