A Village Apart

This critical analysis, written by student Amelia Swaby, explores the concept of age segregation, evaluates the impact on retirement communities within the UK, and investigates if we should be looking deeper into intergenerational approaches to design and create more holistic and sustainable environments for people to age in.

The purpose of the Architectural Research Method (ARM) Paper was to explore the design principles within later-living developments and evaluate how successful these principles are for the end-users. The research highlights the importance of designing for later living with a view to understanding the key principles put forward by architects and developers which aim to provide comfortable and sustainable environments for people to grow old, and thrive, in.

With the divide between ages continuing to grow within the country, research was conducted to investigate possible age-integrated retirement communities and the results yielded were minimal, leading on to the following research questions:

1. Why are current retirement communities within the UK age-segregated?
2. Is creating age-segregated communities harmful to the wider context?
3. How do residents within retirement communities feel about living in an agesegregated environment?
4. What are the benefits of intergenerational approaches within retirement communities?
5. How can we design communities with a more intergenerational lens?