Seventy years ago, it was expected of a child, especially the eldest son in an Asian family, to be filial by taking care of their aged parents. This would often mean staying together in the ancestral home.
Twenty years after the country’s independence, as the education system improved and more people could get jobs in the civil service and as professionals, they could afford to buy their own houses and move out of their ancestral homes.
To continue practising filial piety, some children would move their parents in to stay with them. In turn, their parents would help to watch over their grandchildren.
The standard of living for baby boomers born in the late 50s continued to grow and their children had better opportunities for further education out of town or overseas.
Hence, a new generation of millennials who were influenced by Western culture, transient and independent was born.
Values define design
“However, ” architect Ng Wai Keong explains ‘’ the fundamental values concerning how we relate to our parents are very still Asian. Even though there is still consciousness about taking care of our parents there is the social pressure pushing both the young and old to change.
“Many parents recognise the problems of staying with their children and consequently plan to stay separately from their children.
“They look at scaling down and getting smaller places where they can be independent or semi-dependent. The standard of living of these baby boomer parents have increased compared with the previous generation. They are also physically able and independent,” Ng adds that this is progress drives how house designers and developers look at housing in the future.
The current trend, he says, is for parents and children to live together but given enough space and privacy for each other under the same roof.
“Many people are looking at concepts like dual-key homes where you have a granny flat attached to the main house. This comprises a main unit and a smaller one or two bedded where they share a common lobby and two separate doors.
“They are independent yet still within one home. The granny unit is completely independent with its kitchen, dining and living room. This concept is mostly applied to apartments where you have the two units side by side but completely independent. Those who do not use it as a granny flat may sub-let it,” Ng says.
Although the market has expressed desire for apartments with facilities for senior care such as accessibility to medical care, bathrooms with wider doors and handrails, the buy-in is slow.
“One of the reasons could be that if the property is separated into 2 units, the space won’t seem as big as it would if it were one big unit. They may prefer the space to be another one or two bedrooms rather than living space for the smaller attached unit.
“Another reason is people aged slower these days and so long as they are fit and able to get around, no matter the age, they would still see this as a future need,” says Ng.
Options
Retirement villages are another option to cater to the diverse attitude towards senior living. Developers would design projects based people with these diverse values.
“Some will cater to those who would be drawn towards resorts-like retirement villages like Green Acres in Ipoh, others would design for just assisted living like Sunway which has developed Sanctuary next to the hospital and dual-key properties like Puchong Legenda dual-key terrace houses (this is one of the few existing landed projects that provide for dual-key) In the Malaysian scenario, we have a range of facilities that cater for different forms of ageing. The interest will continue to grow but is yet to be prevalent.
“As the baby boomers age progressively, it will be increasingly evident something needs to be done to cater for their needs. The Puchong Legenda is a generational home that caters for a few generations. A lot of Asians live in terrace houses and dual-key terrace houses would present something familiar.
“On the higher end there are well off families who build individual homes on a big piece of land for each child and the parent would live with the oldest child,” Ng describes some of the options that have been implemented.
He also recognises something unique about senior house buyers in Malaysia. Even though they want stay near their children they would also find it difficult to plan for this as they would not know where their children would want to settle in five to 10 years time.
– JE Tan
