The ‘right’ place to age? Exploring age-friendly and diversity-sensitive design in a super-diverse neighbourhood

Abstract

The neighbourhood is a significant place for older adults in later life, especially given their strong wish to age in place, pointing to the importance of age-friendly design that accommodates older adults’ changing needs. Moreover, the older population is diversifying, highlighting the additional need for diversity-sensitive design, accommodating older adults’ diverse needs. Considering the importance of public places to age-friendly and diversity-sensitive design, this paper explores design that promotes community connection in an age-friendly and diversity-sensitive manner. To do so, a research-by-design study with master students in (interior) architecture was set up in a super-diverse Belgian neighbourhood. After a pre-design phase that immersed students in the neighbourhood and its inhabitants’ experiences, the students engaged in a design phase. Here, they re-designed various public places in an age-friendly and diversity-sensitive manner. The design output illustrates how various functions and intensities answer the changing and diverse needs of a super-diverse population.

Keywords:

• Age-friendly design
• diversity-sensitive design
• community connection
• research-by-design
• architecture

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all master students in (interior) architecture for their contributions as well as Hanne Coninx, Femke Croux and Joachim Nijs (stakeholders) for their involvement, feedback and contributions.

Disclosure statement

The authors report that there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 These designs were chosen because they represent a broad spectrum of affordances (micro, meso, macro-scale), were positively evaluated by stakeholders, and display a diversity of design interventions.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Hasselt University, Grant BOF19KP01.

Notes on contributors

Micheline Phlix

Micheline Phlix holds a PhD in Architecture (Hasselt University) and Adult Educational Sciences (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). She explores older migrants' sense of home and wellbeing and integrates such topics in age-friendly and diversity-sensitive housing and neighbourhood design.

Ruth Stevens

Ruth Stevens (PhD, Architecture) is an architect and postdoctoral researcher in Architecture and Educational Sciences (Hasselt University). She focuses on design for wellbeing (currently applied to school environments), design methodology for the early design phases, and design didactics.

Jan Vanrie

Jan Vanrie (PhD, Psychology) is Associate Professor of Human Sciences and Research Methodology at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts (Hasselt University). He focuses on (interior) architecture, design research and education, and the intersection of environmental psychology and perception.

An-Sofie Smetcoren

An-Sofie Smetcoren (PhD, Adult Educational Sciences) is Assistant Professor and postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Adult Educational Sciences (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). She researches processes of social inclusion and exclusion in communities and how urban environments affect older residents' daily lives.

Ann Petermans

Ann Petermans (PhD, Architecture) is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts, Hasselt University, Belgium. Her research interests concern designing for experience in designed environments and for diverse user groups, design for subjective wellbeing and how (interior) architecture can contribute in this respect.