Dr Emi Kiyota: The Older Want to Care For Us (not the other way around)

In this week’s 4-Quarter Lives Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Dr Emi Kiyota, Founder and director of Ibasho, an organization that facilitates the co-creation with elders of socially integrated, sustainable communities that value their elders. In Japanese, Ibasho means ‘A place where you can feel like yourself’.

Emi Kiyota was born and grew up in Japan in a 4-generation household. She thought living with grandparents and great-grandparents was both normal and essential - until she discovered the world thought otherwise. After a doctorate in the US, and living in American nursing homes, she thought there must be a better way to design life for our future selves. She founded the Ibasho concept, which flips the script. Instead of caring for elders, it’s the elders who care for us. With projects already in Japan, she’s now bringing the idea to Singapore.

Dr. Kiyota holds a Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is an environmental gerontologist and a consultant with over 20 years experience in designing and implementing person-centered care in long-term care facilities and hospitals globally. Her current focus is on creating socially integrated and resilient cities where elders are engaged and able to actively participate in their communities. She has published journal articles and book chapters and serves on the board of directors of the Global Ageing Network. Dr. Kiyota has been awarded fellowships to investigate this topic, including the Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the Rockefeller Bellagio Residency Fellowship, and the Atlantic Fellowship for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute at University of California, San Francisco. She is currently Deputy Executive Director, Centre for Population Health, at the National University of Singapore, and Associate Professor, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and College of Design and Engineering. 

Useful Links:

* Website of Ibasho

* Article: Ibasho House, A Communal Place in an Aging Local Community

* World Bank Report: The Ibasho Toolkit

* Wiley Online Library: Co-creating Environments: Empowering Elders and Strengthening Communities through Design

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