Accessibilità universale e ageing in place

Abstract Recently, thanks to European population progressive senility and to the emerging concept of ageing in place (WHO, 2007), the relationship between ageing and architectural and urban design has been emphasised (Herbes and Mulder, 2017) and the theme of universal accessibility has been relaunched. In this work we focus on the conditioning role that the housing context has on the quality of life of elderly people ageing at home and propose some results from the fieldwork survey conducted in the "IN-AGE" research (1). The present paper is divided into three parts: in the first one we analyse the relationships between ageing in place, spatial context and universal accessibility; in the second part we present the main results of the field research; in the last one we foreshadow some initial possible solutions to mitigate the effects of the built environment on the quality of life of the elderly.