Camberwell Residents Home | Olfactory Research

“Natural scents have a direct pathway to the brain and research shows that some chemical constituents of aromatherapy oils, particularly…sesquiterpenes can cross the blood-brain barrier and increase oxygen flow to the brain,”
-Michelle Schoffro Cook

"Scientist have identified regions of the cortex involved in coding odours; and MRI scans revealed increases in response in the odour-processing areas of our brains that reflected learning. The part of our brain that handles smell – the piriform cortex – is right next door to that responsible for memory and emotion. This has led to our memories becoming intrinsically and strongly linked with odour. "
-read rest of article here

The reasoning behind this research...

I was thinking, it's good that I am working on improving the environment for the residents of Camberwell's Residential home, it helps to boost the mood of the place, make it a little bit more fresh, but i thought it is all well and good changing the visual appearance of the place, should boost the general energy of that environment, but surely I can do more? With a lot of the residents having difficulty with both movement and memory, I figure what stimulates responses within people are the senses. And one of the senses that has the least attention paid to it the sense of smell. I thought is there a way of boosting memory or vitality through this sense. 

Through researching on the internet the essential/aromatherapy oils that keep appearing are:  sweet basil, peppermint, rose, rosemary and thyme; to boost memory/performance. I figure that these smells could easily be placed into the home to boost the resident's moods. Either through cotton balls with essential oils dropped on them and placed throughout the room. Or through electric aromatherapy diffusers. It would not be possible to have these fragrances in oil burners it would be a health and safety risk. Maybe through this method the residents will intake more oxygen and possibly increase vitality. I'll speak to Sally and see what she thinks to this idea.

Also the sense of touch would be interesting to look at, as people respond to that quickly, and there has been a lot of research already done in that area. I just feel that this is part of the work/job when you are redesigning and decorating the interior f somewhere, all the senses have to be stimulated. You can't just think visually, even though that is a large part of it.

Camberwell Residents Home | OS MAP

Today was spent transferring the names across to the roads on the wall.
Just need to make the roads/houses neater and I will be happy.
It's time to start working on the other elements of the room. I'd like to use screen printing on the walls as they are flat and will be cheaper than vinyl and will also look professional.
I think i've decided on the typefaces to use around the house. Caslon- classic and beautiful.
I also had a tutorial today about barcelona book fair- so work should be appearing for that soon.
And about my unit 10 hand in. Which was rather positive so now need to work on everything. Tomorrow I'll be meeting with Alex Reuben to talk over my Rhythm of Typing project. Which am looking forward to feedback on and getting back into that project.

Camberwell Residents Home | 1st weeks work

Day 5. I have completely misunderstood how long it takes to paint!!! But this is just something I must accept and learn from. I am not going to rush this job, it is a permanent feature and permanently in the residents lives, so I want to do as good a job as possible, I won't be happy otherwise. So my game plan is for the reminiscence room to be completed by Friday 25th February. I have got a busy week working on Logo Designs/ Business Cards/ Camberwell Residents Home/ Work for Barcelona Book fair. So hopefully up dates of everything should appear at some point this week.

I have started getting to know the residents and workers at the home and they are all lovely people, and I'm getting some great memories and stories from this project. Asal and Mr Khan, two of the residents, have taught me that having an occupation/ routine to your day is really important. So I want to try and give the residents something that they can all do and get involved in. Asal loves polishing brass objects, is polite, says the best things about life are good health and an occupation. Mr.Khan used to work for the post office for 17 years and would like to start up his own post office- even though he is in his 90s. I feel like there could be a sorting out job that he would love to do. But need to integrate these things into the home.

Camberwell Residents Home | Map to date

 

3rd Day of painting the map. Have roughly been painting for 

about 15 hours, and I have managed to complete a map of

Camberwell Green area. All the blocks of colour are in paradise

green and represent the local green areas back in the 1880s. 

I'm thinking of painting the main roads in cream tomorrow,

think it could make a real impact. Not sure yet though. Will be

making those decisions tomorrow after speaking to Sally, the 

manager, and getting her thoughts on the map so far. Still lots

to be getting on with but at least the reminiscence room is 

beginning to come together now. Hopefully the map should

be complete by the end of the week! As I have lots more to 

be getting on with at the home.

Camberwell Residents Home | Initial OS map drawing

Before

After 4/5 hours

Okay it was my first day painting and getting my plans put into action at Camberwell Residents Home today. This room used to be the quiet room but is now being transformed into a reminiscence room. The idea is to paint an OS style map onto the wall circa late 1800s- early 1900s. I spent the day drawing up an OS map onto the wall in pencil- still needs work. And I've just started painting this now, as shown above. There will be facts about the local area around the room for residents to look at and be reminded of their era. Brass objects and other objects from the residents era shall be placed in this room. It may not look like a lot has been done but should start to come together tomorrow. I want this done within the next few days as there is a lot of work to be done! Added note this has been painted in a dark brown as I felt black may be too harsh on some of the residents retinas.

Initial drawings| Camberwell residents home

A new live project that I am working on

alongside Helen. Is to redesign the interior

of Camberwell residents home. Above are 

some initial sketches of some of the rooms.

We spent Monday afternoon speaking with 

the residents and finding out what they would

want to change or want to have more of.

And the ideas are coming into place now.

We are trying to involve the residents as much

as possible, as it is their home.

The sketches and ideas should all be done

by January and work to begin just after.

The building is four stories high, our main

focus is on the hallways, dining room, 

2 living rooms, reception, bathrooms and

kitchen. We spoke to Sally (the manager)

and she is really liking our ideas, the budget

is obviously small and we are going to thrift

a lot but that just makes this a more exciting

project as am looking at reusing things in a

new light. We also want the residents to 

interact with this as much as possible.

Most the residents suffer from dimensia

only 2 can walk and there are roughly

30 residents- the oldest being an impressive 105.