Designing for the Life Span Segment 4
Designing for the Life Span Segment 4 
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Robert Sommer, an eminent environmental psychologist depicted healthfulness as a life bubble. In his book, Personal Space, Sommer discusses the impermeability of the "bubble" for healthy adults and the vulnerability of individuals as they become infirm and their bubble becomes thinner and less defined in shape. For many very disabled and ill individuals, the bubble stretches to the walls and even small changes to environment will cause physical and psychological change.
As vulnerability increases, individuals grow more sensitive to their environment...
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Robert Sommer, in his seminal work, "Personal Space," discussed human vulnerability. This concept is helpful in explaining the sensitivity of older adults to their surroundings as their capabilities change. He envisioned personal space as a kind of bubble that was quite impenetrable when people were both physiologically and psychologically healthy. In youth, this life bubble has thick walls and is a tight fit to the individual. As people incur both physiological and psychological problems, their life bubble becomes thinner, loses shape and extends further out from the body increasing vulnerability. Changes in the environment and in social surroundings may affect the vulnerable far more quickly and profoundly than others.
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