A Russian retiree’s beautifully painted satellite dishes do double-duty as works of art and functioning receivers for the orbiting descendants of Sputnik.

Love of Satellite

Russia knows satellites: the success of Sputnik-1 in late 1957 shocked the world and jump-started the Space Race. Fast-forward six decades and Yuri Kuznetsov, a retiree from the Ivanovo region, is compelling the world to appreciate Russia’s love affair with satellites once more… though in a much more down-to-earth manner.

Retro Retirement

When Kuznetsov retired from his career as a sailor, he returned to his small home village of Voznesenye. Like far too many retirees, however, he soon found that being at rest day after day was making him, er, restless. What’s an old salty seadog to do?

Inspiration from Above

Friends advised Kuznetsov to take up a hobby as a way of keeping himself busy. Having once been a painter – art, not houses – he figured he’d dust off his palette and crack open the ol’ paintbox. The only question left was… what should he paint? The answer came to him from above. Not TOO far above, mind you, just about rooftop level. Like, the place where people mount home satellite receiver dishes. Cue mental lightbulb!

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Dish Nyet Work Painted Russian Satellite Dishes

The state-of-the-art Arnold Home helped ease generations of retired Detroiters off this mortal coil before changing demographics dulled its once-cutting edge.

Hasta la Vista, Granny

The Arnold Home on Detroit’s Seven Mile Road opened in 1931, and was the final iteration of a succession of “Arnold” elder care homes dating back to 1899. Reverend Charles Arnold conceived the idea of a live-in care home after noting that the soon-to-be-Motor-City’s industrial boom was a bust for the old, the ill, and others in need of a social safety net.

The Big House

The penultimate Arnold Home was designed and built by Weston and Ellington, a Detroit-based architectural firm whose portfolio included the Metropolitan Building, The Wardell hotel (now the Park Shelton condominiums), and the New Light Baptist Church. The two-story tall Arnold Home featured four wings housing up to 115 residents, a dining hall, and hospital facilities. 1938 saw the addition of two more stories, increasing patient capacity to 235 beds.

No Motown

Detroit’s demographics began to change in the late 1950s and early 1960s, however. Middle-class retirees were moving to the suburbs and new residents tended to rely more heavily on Medicare and other government assistance programs. As this trend progressed, the Arnold Home began experiencing funding and budgeting issues that resulted in a steadily declining standard of care.

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Tired Retired Detroits Abandoned Arnold Home

With millions of discerning Baby Boomers approaching elderhood, the need for a variety of personalized approaches to senior care is more pressing than ever. Let’s be real – none of us really want to end up in a nursing home, so what are the alternatives? It’s now possible to ‘age in place’ in our own neighborhoods, remain independent much longer, live in smaller groups and enjoy a higher quality of life with facilities that think outside the nursing home box and technology that keeps elders connected to their families and caregivers.

Backyard ‘Granny Pods’ by N2Care

For elders who are fiercely independent, but still in need of some help from friends and family, detached micro houses can be a dream. These so-called ‘granny pods’ are built specifically with senior living in mind, offering varying features depending on how much care is needed. The ‘MedCottage’ comes equipped with robotic features that monitor vital signs, for instance, along with safety rails, lighted flooring and built-in cameras. Other models are more like slightly modified tiny houses. This way, when the houses are placed in a backyard, residents can participate in the lives of their family while maintaining privacy for everyone.

Lantern of Chagrin Valley: Nostalgic Indoor City for Dementia Patients

Can you imagine waking up one day to find that you have no idea where you are and don’t recognize any of the people around you – and worse, you’re in a cold, impersonal facility that looks more than a little dystopian? It’s no wonder people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia often wander away, looking for something that feels more familiar and comforting. But of course, wandering around outside can be really dangerous for people with dementia. An assisted living facility called Lantern of Chagrin Valley finds a compromise with a layout inspired by 1940s small towns, with residents’ rooms shaped like the facades of houses complete with porches and rocking chairs. The floor is grassy, the ceiling lights up like the sky, bird chirping plays from speakers and the porch lights come on at night. Research shows that controlled environments help reduce anxiety, anger and depression among dementia patients, and everything in this facility, from the paint colors to the scents, is designed to offer a therapeutic benefit.

ElliQ ‘Robot Friend’ for Aging People

Take the functionality of Google Home or Alexa and tailor it to the specific needs of the aging population, and you’ve got ElliQ, a bot designed to help elderly people remain connected to the outside world. The bot reminds users of appointments, tells them when to take their medications, suggests activities like exercises and offers ideas for podcasts to listen to. The bot is still in development, and not yet ready to order, but Intuition Robotics is looking for older adults and their families to join their testing community.

Magical Micro Retirement Community in Japan by Issei Suma

It may look like something out of a fairytale, but this cluster of domed houses is actually a retirement home for women in Japan by architect Issei Suma. ‘Jikka’ was originally created for two women in their 60s, one a social worker and one a cook, but it can accommodate residents with varying levels of ability and mobility. It features a kitchen, dining area, shared bedroom, guest room and bathroom, and the coolest part is the spiral pool that allows someone in a wheelchair to roll right into the water.

Honor On-Demand Elder Care

A lot of people end up in nursing facilities simply because they can’t afford to have a private nurse or assistant meet their needs each day, whether that means medical care or just some assistance getting around. The idea of the Honor on-demand care service is that help with tasks like laundry, moving heavy items, picking up prescriptions, getting to and from doctor appointments and other forms of assistance are just a click away. There are no minimums, so users can schedule the care they want, when they want it, and pay as they go. This kind of on-demand assistance makes it possible for older people to live independently much longer.

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These abandoned nursing homes illustrate the contrast between the rising need for senior care facilities and the costs of keeping older nursing homes open.

The Horner Memorial Nurses’ Home sits cheek-by-jowl to the similarly abandoned Brownsville General Hospital in tiny Brownsville, PA, located 40 miles south of Pittsburgh. The Nurses’ Home opened in 1928 and housed – you guessed it – nurses who worked in the hospital next door.

Brownsville’s population declined from over 8,000 in 1940 to just over 2,000 in 2016 as a consequence of steel industry restructuring. The hospital closed in 1965 but the Nurses’ Home lived on after morphing into the Golden Age Nursing Home. This second incarnation lasted until 1985 when both buildings were completely abandoned; any remaining residents were relocated to the nearest regional facility. Flickr member Forsaken Fotos snapped the images above and more in June of 2014. To view a wealth of interior photos and learn additional info about these facilities, please visit the Architectural Afterlife website.

European Elegance

We’re not sure when the above abandoned nursing home closed but it must have been relatively recently judging from its well-preserved state… well, peeling paint aside. The photographer (Flickr member Gentleman of Decay) uploaded the images above in March of 2017 but neglected to state the facility’s name and location – just as well, since there’s nothing like a swarm of squatters, vandals and druggies to trash a building that’s given up the ghost with the greatest of dignity.

Scot Free

Templedean Hall in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, was built in 1911 and initially served as a Children’s Home. One wonders if any of those children returned to the Templedean Hall Nursing Home as senior citizens before the facility closed in 2003. It’s the circle of life.

Designated a Category B Listed Building in 1977, the facility was visited by Flickr member Stuart Cale (kyz) in May of 2009. Cale uploaded 17 photos (16 of which show the interior) that illustrate just how “preserved” the facility is.

Rising From The Ashes

Not all abandoned nursing homes are doomed to deterioration and eventual demolition. Take the Hot Lake Sanitorium near La Grande, Oregon. Originally built in 1864 as the Hot Lake Hotel, the facility was a popular vacation destination in the early years of the twentieth century. A devastating fire in 1934 put an end to all that, not to mention much of the hotel.

Subsequently, the repaired facility took on new life as a retirement home, an asylum, and a nurse’s training school during the Second World War. The building was closed and abandoned in 1991 but lately, thanks to the thermal springs in the area, a revival is underway with current owners planning to reopen the site as a hotel, art gallery and restaurant. A tip of the hat to Flickr member Roadsidepictures for the above photos and images.

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Health Careless 12 Decrepit Abandoned Nursing Homes

It sounds at first like the dystopian plot of Dark City or The Truman Show, with free-seeming residents unaware they are actually inhabitants of a closed community they cannot leave and  in which they are under constant surveillance … but that is only one side of the story.

A total of 150 Alzheimer’s sufferers live in Hogewey, this gated community unlike any other. Located in the Netherlands, it boasts copious walking paths and open green spaces, a grocery shop, hair salon and dozens of stores and clubs.

The friendly grocers and stylists are, however, all employees of the facility (caregivers, doctors and nurses). If someone approaches the single exit to the outside world they are politely, gently but firmly told to perhaps try another door as this one is closed.

If this sounds like a terrible situation initially, consider this: patients can roam much more freely than in many elder car facilities. Patients here require fewer medications, eat better and live longer. Still, it raises philosophical questions that are difficult to answer about the relative value of knowledge and happiness, for instance.

Dormitory-style rooms are situated around the exterior of the campus, allowing views out, but building exits all face inward. Each residence structure has a “lifestyle theme” associated with it, designed to make people feel it home, surrounded by appropriate religious symbols for some, music and art for others.

CNN’s Dr. Gupta traveled to Weesp, the village in which the facility is set, and interviewed caregivers in this extensive twenty-three-minute segment on its purpose and workings. Some people question the ethics of the inherent deception, but if the residents feel at home, it is hard to say what a better alternative might be than this seemingly-ordinary everyday reality.