NCHA Independent Living Lab

National Centre for Healthy Ageing Independent Living Lab co-design principles

  • Investigators

  • Co-investigators

      • Professor Mel Dodd, Monash Art, Design and Architecture
      • Associate Professor Maryam Gusheh, Monash Art, Design and Architecture
      • Associate Professor Kathy Waghorn, Monash Art, Design and Architecture
      • Associate Professor Libby Callaway, School of Primary Allied Health Care (RAIL Lab)
      • Dr Eli Chu, Monash University
      • Dr Duncan Maxwell, Monash Art, Design and Architecture
      • Dr Rachel Couper, Monash Art, Design and Architecture
      • Fiona McAlinden, Monash University
      • Dr Gretchen Coombs, Monash Art, Design and Architecture

  • Partner organisation

    • Peninsula Health

  • Funded by

    • Building 4.0 CRC

  • Undertaken within

“To bring a unique group of people together, maybe researchers, educators, clinicians and the client and their family to really problem solve something that nobody has been able to solve for them just yet.”

Workshop participant

The National Centre for Healthy Ageing (NCHA) is a joint venture between Peninsula Health, Monash University and the community. It has been established to create a centralised hub for innovation and transformation of healthcare practices. The NCHA aims to create better integrated care models to promote health and wellbeing across the lifespan, and drive improvements in the way people seek out and access care, to ensure they reflect and align with their values and needs.

The Independent Living Lab is a piece of research infrastructure within the NCHA’s Simulated Environments stream of work. This Living Lab aims to support research and related activities to deliver the NCHA vision and aims, by providing a simulated home environment for multidisciplinary research, testing and demonstration of integrated spatial, assistive technology, and care models for healthy living and ageing.

MADA researchers, collaborating through a Building 4.0 CRC Lighthouse Project, led a co-design consultation to establish the design parameters for the Independent Living Lab. This process brought together 34 stakeholders including lived experience consumers, educators, clinicians and government to collaboratively create the Model of Care; identify and articulate the future practices in disability, health and aged; and develop an ‘experience specification’ to inform the architectural functional brief.

From the raw data and thematic insights gathered during the co-design workshop, a set of guiding principles were developed. These principles inform both the spatial design of the Lab and its service and operational models. The findings from this research have helped define the formal, spatial, and experiential elements of the architecture and associated technologies—ensuring they support the needs of both care providers and recipients, and potentially transforming how care is delivered.