BIM-enabled multi-level assessment of age-friendliness of urban housing based on multiscale spatial framework: enlightenments of housing support for “aging-in-place”

The worldwide population of the elderly has increased rapidly. Housing issue is regarded as the main barrier to implementing “aging-in-place”, which is a recommended strategy to encourage the elderly to age in their residences. Although many studies have contributed to age-friendly cities and communities, few studies have focused on measuring housing age-friendliness with consideration of urban spatial scales. This study proposes a multiscale spatial framework of housing and develops a multi-level assessment of housing age-friendliness based on literature review and fuzzy-analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The multi-level assessment of age-friendliness takes advantage of building information modeling (BIM) to simplify the computation process of the housing age-friendliness index (HAFI). The feasibility of BIM-enabled multi-level assessment is proved by comparative analysis of two housing examples. Results of HAFI and sub-HAFIs indicate housing may perform variously with spatial levels. This study contributes to developing the age-friendly performance assessment for housing by considering various significances of housing characteristics in multiple spatial levels. The BIM-enabled multi-level assessment is an effective tool to help the elderly choose more appropriate housing, assist the government in allocating suitable public housing for aged applicants, and provide property developers and local governments with additional guidelines for housing design and urban renewal.