OME _ open and active senior living concept
Program A new concept for a senior residence open to its environment
Location –
Year 2021
Client Arcade VYV + Arche Promotion
Team Éric Cassar, Astrid Arnaud, Leire Urionagüena, Alaa Sndyan
Communication TERRITOIRES
Digital infrastructure i-PORTA
General principles
OME (Opening to the Outside World) is a new senior living concept based on a simple conviction: people age better when they remain open to the world and useful to others.
As life expectancy continues to increase and people over 75 represent a growing share of the population, OME proposes a different way of inhabiting longevity. The objective is no longer simply to accompany ageing, but to offer residents a stimulating, open, relational and meaningful living environment.
OME transforms the senior residence into a genuine place of life connected to its neighbourhood, its inhabitants and its resources.
Feeling Useful to Age Well
OME is founded on a central idea: enabling everyone to continue transmitting, learning, sharing and participating in collective life.
Residents are no longer simply recipients of services. They become active contributors to a living ecosystem where knowledge, experience and personal initiatives enrich both the residence and the surrounding neighbourhood.
Age becomes a resource as much as an experience.
An Active Building Open to the World
Designed as an active building, OME encourages interactions between residents, relatives, associations, local businesses and the various stakeholders of the territory.
Shared, flexible and augmented spaces accommodate a wide range of activities, foster intergenerational relationships and support the development of new services.
The residence acts as an accelerator of relationships, a catalyst for resources and a generator of initiatives.
The apartments themselves participate in this dynamic. Conceived as communicative spaces, they allow residents to interact easily with their environment through voice-based interfaces. Walls become discreet interfaces opening space onto other spaces, near or distant, and providing access to information, services and loved ones.
This approach seeks to « make walls speak », transforming the dwelling into a daily companion capable of facilitating exchanges, maintaining family connections with children, grandchildren and friends despite distance, and expanding possibilities without increasing complexity.
A Place that Reveals Experiences
Spaces are designed to offer a diversity of atmospheres and situations: moments of calm or activity, individual or collective experiences, planned encounters or unexpected discoveries.
Residents can choose their environments according to their needs, desires or the time of day.
Each apartment can also be personalised to recreate familiar references and a unique identity. Supported by their relatives, residents can select layouts, furniture and everyday objects through simple digital tools.
This approach encourages appropriation of the living environment while supporting reuse and circular economy principles.
The architecture promotes discovery, autonomy, pleasure and sensory stimulation while preserving privacy.
A Residence in Synergy with its Territory
OME develops close relationships with its neighbourhood and contributes to a local social and solidarity-based economy.
Gardens, workshops, shared services, citizen initiatives and partnerships strengthen territorial resilience while enriching everyday life for residents.
The residence becomes a pivot between inside and outside, between generations, between proximity and openness to the world.
Architecture, Care and Digital Tools
The project relies on three complementary components: an architecture designed through n-spaces, caring facilitators supporting residents, and a digital infrastructure that strengthens human relationships, services and exchanges.
This approach extends the research developed by Arkhenspaces through projects such as Infinity Home, Working in H(e)artmony and The Active Building, all exploring active buildings and hybrid environments.
Ageing well means remaining useful to others and open to the world.
This research opens perspectives and applications that are only partially presented here.