Population aging is the dominant global demographic trend of the 21st century. According to United Nations‘ statistics, by 2050, 1 in 6 people in the world will be over the age of 65, up from 1 in 11 in 2019. In the post-pandemic era, older adults are facing significant challenges in maintaining their physical and mental health. And 1/4 older adults considered to be socially isolated. Loneliness and social isolation in older adults are serious public health risks affecting a significant number of people in the United States and affecting their dietary intake.
Hosten gathers older adults and young generations with a cooking & dining experience.
Our system facilitates a healthier lifestyle by providing a senior-friendly farmers’ market, healthy co-cooking events, and dining & socializing experience in one package accompany by nature.
Based on the idea of co-created cities, we bridge resources from local farms to community tables. By partnering with local non-profit organization, ONEgeneration, we bring empowerment to the community. Our senior-friendly farmers’ markets gather fresh ingredients from local farms and safely provide them to older adults. Older adults could learn about nutrition and dietary information from the accessible market. The market staffs also include older adults, which gives them new job opportunities and brings back their autonomy. Our central kitchen featuring local chefs is a co-created classroom for older adults to learn healthy recipes and share their cultural recipes. And the shared dining experience shifts the social distance into a therapeutic table landscape for people to socialize while enjoying their meal. Our guests include local older adults, farmers, and young volunteers. It creates a new community hub for the city and brings different generations together with food.
We truly embraced the co-creation process while we develop our ideas. We frequently interviewed doctors, experts, and our users to conduct secondary research and make incremental improvements to our concept. We also made prototypes to test with our users and get instant feedback.
Hosten aims to provide a platform for local farmers during the post-pandemic time. Bridging resources of fresh produce and providing them for our local older adults with a farmers’ market with safety precautions. By partnering with local non-profit organization, ONEgeneration, we bring empowerment to the community.
Based on the idea of co-created cities, we aim to bridge resources from local farms all the way to the community table. Hosten integrated a new form of farmers markets that focuses on being senior-friendly and gathered fresh ingredients from local farms and provide them safely to older adults.
This project would be impossible without the generous guidance of Penny Herscovitch, Leigh Hoffman, Aishwarya Janwadkar, George Kordaris, Dr. Scott Kaiser and faculties and classmates at ArtCenter.
Our program Hosten facilitates a healthier lifestyle by providing a nutritional-enriched farmers' market, lively co-cooking events, and a fun dining & socializing experience for older adults. We aim to bring older adults and young generations together safely with food.
Program participants reflect the diversity of the San Fernando Valley communities, including recent immigrants of multiple ethnicities and racial groups, who speak languages ranging from Armenian, Farsi, and Yiddish to Spanish, Tagalog, and Mandarin.
