Ninth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Cities are collective artefacts built on the prospect of shared values, social exchange, and collaboration. The modernist model of the functional city and more recently updated as the service/smart city model does not allow for this collaborative foundation to unfold its potential. One of the most substantial challenges to the service city idea more recently comes in the form of aging in place. The demand to, after decades of residency, remain part of the communities into old age. Politicians, policy makers, and planners struggle to rationalise this concept and implement contextual conditions to facilitate this. The challenges put forward as economic viability and investment opportunities cloud the fact that it is a demand rooted in everyday life, practice, and normality. In a recent community engagement process focusing on aging in place in Calgary, we have been studying how memory, identity, and shared history play a role in the making of an urban environment that enables and supports aging in place. Beyond concepts of “universal design” or “design for all”, aspects of placemaking and shared identity play a crucial role. It has become clear that aging in place is more about participation engagement than physical or technical accessibility. We are proposing a model that fosters co-creation and develops new spatial models around planning processes facilitating aging in place as a process of taking part. Such a model offers the opportunity to engage with new technologies and smart city building block potentially leading to an updated more socially centred functional constructed environment.