The current state of architectural practice, particularly in the U.S., is very rigged against senior citizens. In societies where architecture has left the hands of its inhabitants, undesirable conditions result for the oldest members of their families.
I direct these ideas to those people who live in places where architecture is still largely controlled by government policies and corporate greed. There are many developing countries and even communities is the first world that choose to design their living with respect towards their elders. For the sake of this conversation, I will be focusing on the United States because I live here and know firsthand the issues I am discussing. This is meant to be an analysis of the trends I see in the way architecture, particularly housing, is designed in a very limited way, resulting in difficulty accommodating our elders in the optimal manner. Anarchistic sentiment is relevant in my opinion because many of the problems in architecture are symptoms of overly government reliant societies.
SIMPLER TIMES
Architecture used to exist in an era without quick means of transportation. Human beings would grow around a strong social nucleus and the co-dependence on family as individuals grew older was just a natural inclination. This is not to say that people didn't migrate or move away from their parents, but in general there was a tighter knit relationship between the young and old that resulted from people not being able to leave so easily. And perhaps they never wanted to.
TRANSPORTATION WEAKENS COMMUNITIES
There are endless benefits but also very negative side effects of living in a society that moves too fast. I can list a couple of ways transportation has hurt communities and ultimately our elders from an urban perspective.
People are working outside of their communities.
Transportation has resulted in one of the most confusing aspects of human society that seems to have no end in sight. A great number of people are working unreasonably far from where they work. From a historical and logical perspective this makes absolutely no sense for the health of a community.
I live near Los Angeles, and almost everybody I meet seems to be working 30-60 minutes away from their job. In some cases, people are travelling as far as 90-120 minutes to their work, which is even more obscene. I know LA is a case study in itself, but too many cities around the world are experiencing this same problem without knowing it's even an issue.
Speedy transportation has made it possible for people to either choose to live far from where they work or work far from where they live. In either case, it seems to be unnecessary for human beings to do this at such a large scale due to the large traffic problems which cause many sub-problems such as:
- Pollution
- Accidents
- Stress
- Time wasted
In addition to the traffic problem, the local economy and social strength of the community suffers as well. On the other side of the spectrum, people living in the areas being commuted to are living in dense and overstimulated environments. The price of land skyrockets in these regions and people living there are possibly forced to move out just to be able to survive. It is no mystery how huge cities are pushing their lower and middle class further and further away from their core. To make matters worse, much of the housing in super expensive cities is actually empty or ends up being re-purposed for business. What you get is:
1. Cities with tons of jobs and few houses.
2. Cities with tons of housing and few jobs.
These two extremes are not healthy. They exist in a false sense of symbiosis, yet it was never necessary for this to happen. Perhaps it is the growing number or unique jobs which makes it impossible for people to find a relevant job in their cities. The competition has expanded globally and people are flocking to these mega-cities in hopes of striking the golden job. Regardless of the reasons, the resulting condition is one that discourages the improvement of our current setting.
How does this affect our elders?
The points I have discussed affect our elders in many ways. First of all, every means of transportation seems to be inconvenient at some point in the life of a senior citizen. Whether it be a car, or public transportation, there are dangers and risks that can be avoided by living like we used to by just walking everywhere. Coincidentally, it is these very means of transportation that has made us a very lazy society, thus unable to walk later in life due to an environment that promotes unhealthy habits. Yet I do not mean to make a blanket statement, I simply believe that the need to commute far in in certain regions makes it tough for people to keep up as they grow older. To lay a contrasting backdrop to this discussion, in certain places where walking to work is always possible, older people remain active much longer and remain dominant figures in their communities.
Having to commute far to work means that at some point in your life you may be forced to give up your job simply because you cannot physically go there. I know of many people who are extremely willing to work and mentally able yet can't keep working at their office, firm, factory, school, restaurant etc. just because they are either incapable of driving that far anymore. Conversely, living in the large city people are commuting to is no longer feasible for unemployed seniors living there, forcing them to move out to the outskirts.
Simply put, a society where people are able to walk as much as possible is just plain better.
ARCHITECTURE'S ROLE
With people progressively moving further away and slowly losing their ability to build their own homes over thousands of years, architecture has suffered an interesting disease.
Architecture has become rigid and unable to adapt to changes necessary according to natural human changes and unpredictability.
Look at developing civilizations across the globe and you will see an organic pattern in housing. Within these societies there are patterns in either high density or relatively spread out dwellings. These differences in density can be attributed to either being forced to live in a small plot of land, by choice, climate or even geographic features.
No matter the reason, human beings has survival mechanisms embedded into their architectural instincts. Left alone in a random location, a community of 100 people would eventually figure out how to build, hunt and be able to sustain themselves in several different ways without the need to go anywhere else. This might be the crux of my entire argument:
Being forced to live and work in the same community would encourage the optimal self-sustaining lifestyle necessary to properly be autonomous or be cared for in old age.
In such "utopias" architecture is sensitive to the needs of its citizens as they stand, and has the ability to be changed or added to in an organic and healthy fashion. If you wanted to have your widowed mother move in with you there would be an easier and more desirable way to do so than what we have now. Yet, there is no need to force anyone to remain in one place. The suggestion is not to create caged communities, but to build ecosystems where architecture is as flexible as its inhabitants. In fact, the more control its inhabitants have over what is built the more likely it is capable of adapting.
How does this affect our elders?
Architecture that is prescribed and unable to change makes for a culture of putting away our old people in a large building with tons of other old people because our lifestyle prohibits us from taking care of them directly. As much as we might want to do so, financial or spacial circumstances will lead to the inevitable choice of assisted living. This is something that would still be unheard of only a hundred or so years ago. But we still cannot get rid of assisted living. In fact is is probably better to also address the design of the thousands of miserable buildings we put our wisest members of society in.
In short, our buildings should be flexible and well designed in order to make elders more welcome to live with their families. In the events that this is not possible, assisted living should be improved drastically so people can live out their last days in the healthiest way possible. Both psychological and spatial factors are at play here.
not the best architectural example due to its rigidity but you can see what i mean by modular
WHAT TO DO
We are way too far along as a society for any one of us to hope that things will be like they used to be thousands of years ago, but there are many ways to move forward with the same principles. I will summarize what I think are the most important things to work on architecturally. My wish is to dive into these ideas more in depth in future posts, as I am extremely passionate about this subject. Here they are:
1. Design buildings that can be easily split or added to.
I already covered the basic principle of this, but the architectural complexity of such a building is one that has yet to be refined. Movable walls and modular construction are two very important existing mechanisms that can serve as the basis for this system. An existing effort to add to homes is called the "Grannypod", which I will cover in future posts.
2. Design buildings that cater to caretakers.
I have seen many houses that are designed with maids in mind. Separate entrances and services are existing mechanisms that can be used to house caretakers as needed.
3. Provide maximum outdoor space.
I can write an entire book about how the lack of outdoor space in high density housing is killing our health and our spirit. I believe that senior citizens need proper outdoor space in any living environment. I recommend at least 150 sq. ft. per dwelling, with the ability to grow things if possible.
4. Provide proper community spaces.
Having enough outdoor space per unit is important, but having outdoor community space that people actually use is a challenge unto itself. In high density housing, it becomes extremely challenging. I would advise designing a usable roof or intermediate floors dedicated to actually inviting people to hang out and possibly engage in sustainable activities such as growing their own food. Again, there are tons of ideas I will cover in future posts.
5. Build and encourage small businesses close to home.
This is not strictly an architectural matter, but there is something to be said about the way urban design moves people further from their jobs than needed. The distribution of housing and businesses is not even enough. This brings us back to the idea of transportation enabling people to accept this extreme separation.
THE TAKEAWAY
In conclusion, I believe that a change of attitude in our architectural and urban practice is due. We need to design with the elderly in mind. Let's face it, we are going to grow old. Wouldn't you want to increase your quality of living at that age?
If you learned anything from this post or have ideas and suggestions I would love to hear back from you. This is an important subject that our senior citizens are already involved with on a day to day basis. Your comments will surely bring something to the conversation.
Thank you.