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From Roadblocks to Retreats : Reimagining Mini-Parks as Senior-Friendly Therapeutic Communities Mok, Alex (Kai Fung)

Abstract

Urban loneliness among seniors remains an overlooked mental health issue in post-pandemic Canada. According to the Canadian City Parks Report 2024, only one-fourth of Canadian cities are well equipped with outdoor park programs to support seniors’ mental well-being. This project proposes a senior-friendly design toolkit to transform 9 underused mini-parks—originally built as traffic barriers in the 1980s—into therapeutic spaces. These redesigned parks will offer nearby, calming environments that foster social connection and nature engagement for low-income, mobility-limited elderly individuals in adjacent high-rises. Jervis St Park is selected as an example to illustrate the application of the toolkit.

Item Metadata

Title
From Roadblocks to Retreats : Reimagining Mini-Parks as Senior-Friendly Therapeutic Communities
Creator
Mok, Alex (Kai Fung)
Date Issued
2025-05-01
Description
Urban loneliness among seniors remains an overlooked mental health issue in post-pandemic Canada. According to the Canadian City Parks Report 2024, only one-fourth of Canadian cities are well equipped with outdoor park programs to support seniors’ mental well-being. This project proposes a senior-friendly design toolkit to transform 9 underused mini-parks—originally built as traffic barriers in the 1980s—into therapeutic spaces. These redesigned parks will offer nearby, calming environments that foster social connection and nature engagement for low-income, mobility-limited elderly individuals in adjacent high-rises. Jervis St Park is selected as an example to illustrate the application of the toolkit.
Subject
urban loneliness; senior-friendly; therapeutic; pocket space
Genre
Graduating Project
Type
Text
Language
eng
Series
University of British Columbia. LARC_V 598
Date Available
2025-05-05
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0448763
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/91000
Affiliation
Applied Science, Faculty of; Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of
Campus
UBCV
Peer Review Status
Unreviewed
Scholarly Level
Graduate
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International