A Village Apart: Rethinking Age-Segregated Retirement Housing for a More Intergenerational Future

This research paper was produced as part of a written thesis for a Master’s degree apprenticeship in architecture at Northumbria University.

With over four years of experience as an architectural designer at P+HS Architects, I have worked on several later-living development projects and, due to this, have further developed a keen interest in housing solutions for the ageing population.

Through continued research into the topic of later-living housing, it became apparent that most, if not all, of the purpose-built ‘retirement’ developments (including extra care facilities and sheltered housing) currently being designed and built today are age-exclusive intended for residents aged only fifty-five and over.

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:

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

My research ‘A Village Apart’ aims to explore the concept of age segregation and the effects it has on wellbeing, social integration and links to ageism whilst evaluating the impact this has on retirement communities within the UK, and investigate if we should be looking deeper into intergenerational approaches to design and create more holistic and sustainable environments for people to age in.

Several interviews were conducted with a range of experts from differing sectors, including healthcare professionals, council members and housing developers alongside current residents within age-exclusive retirement housing to better understand attitudes, opinions and potential barriers posed to intergenerational living.

The overall results of this paper intend to demonstrate the benefits of intergenerational connection and hopefully inspire architects, designers and policy makers to adopt a more intergenerational lens in future schemes.

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Join Amelia and others in our upcoming HAPPI Hour webinar on Living Intergenerationally: finding the common ground, taking place on Tuesday 26th November 2024, where we will discuss why and how intergenerational living has significant social impact on all our communitites.