The desires to live independently during old age throw challenge to designers to think up suitable dwelling that facilitates the elderly to age in place. The present research aimed at identifying the gap between existing housing conditions and the housing needs of the elderly and design a studio apartment a self-contained housing unit that places a whole lot of activities in a single room except the bathroom. The standard design guidelines served as a yardstick to identify the existing features and for proposing the design of the studio apartment. The houses in which the elderly were residing were found lacking in space allowances for circulation and wheelchair use. The Majority of the houses may not facilitate the elderly to age in place. The bath rooms in existing elderly houses were found lacking in features like sufficient space for wheel chair, fittings and fixtures to ensure safety and convenience in usage. The clearance space for making bed, for movement around bed, for making use of space on one side of the bed was found to be satisfactory in slightly more than half of the study sample. No extra effort was taken to make flooring non-slippery in the existing elderly houses. The results revealed that there exists a significant association between existing conditions of living room, bathroom and flooring with design needs the of elderly. Housing needs and requirements of the elderly people were taken into account and the design of a studio apartment was developed as per the standard guidelines.