Photography:SS Kyushu

The special elderly nursing home "Shinonome Hill" is the first small-scale "living unit" style nursing home in Okinawa prefecture, and was designed along the concept of "A final abode, not a facility, a home".
With respect for the privacy of the individual, instead of the traditional four-to-a-room format, all rooms are private and carefully designed to accommodate barrier-free and universal design concepts. Shinonome Hill implements unit care, with 10 residents per unit, and each unit is equipped with all necessary living facilities such as kitchen, bathroom and laundry room, etc, and each private room is 17m². In addition a total 165 lavatories have been installed, including the private rooms, for the 120 residents, to achieve a 0% usage rate with regards to portable latrines.
Furthermore, in order to maintain functions during disasters, the facility has its own emergency power plant and a 30t capacity water receiving tank. For energy conservation, some air conditioning units use gas heat pumps.