This paper aims to report the findings of a systematic review of the literature describing homeliness as a design criteria within residential care homes.
Background:
Caring for older people is an increasingly challenging and universal issue for society the ageing demographic crosses borders and cultures. While many countries are developing ways of supporting people in their own homes, there is also recognition of the continued need for residential care for older people. Much thinking about care homes stems from Goffman’s work surrounding institutions (1961). His concept of total institutions was based on three main features: collective or communal living, isolation from the wider community and life determined by a set of enforced, formal rules. He also highlighted the essential abnormality of institutional life, due to the lack of separate environments for work, home and leisure and its communal nature.
This abnormality may have been viewed differently prior to the 18th century. During this era, Rybczynski (1987) describes living conditions in Europe as being largely communal in nature, with a lack of rooms for distinct functions, and little furniture designed for specific functions or permanent positioning. Rybczinski also describes the development of a increasingly coherent set of criteria. By the time of Goffman’s writing (1961), these recognisable concepts of home, comfort and domesticity, were the lenses through which the majority of dwellings either individual or family units were viewed.
While the house had previously been a major contributor to the roles of its occupants, the 1960’s saw the beginnings of societal change with the rise of the feminist movement, providing space for privacy and intimacy, for individuality and for self expression. As Rybczynski (1987) states, lifestyles change, and this change impacts our understanding of home and domesticity, and increasingly our expectations for the role of the home in our lives. This equally applies to the functionality and comfort of the shared or communal residence, and is just one aspect of the complexity of designing ‘homely’ care homes. This study seeks to explore the prevailing thinking in relation to the concept of domesticity and to what extend this forms part of the development of designs for residential homes.

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