Place-Making with Older Adults: Towards Age-Friendly Communities

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Ageing populations in Brazil and the UK have generated new challenges in how to best design living environments that support and promote everyday social engagement for older people. The ageing-in-place agenda posits that the preferred environment to age is the community, enabling older people to retain a sense of independence, safety and belonging. Encouraging older adults to remain in their communities has contributed to planning and design concepts such as Age-Friendly Cities and Communities, Lifelong Homes and Liveable Neighbourhoods. However, current urban planning and development models have overlooked the notion of sense of place, articulated through supports for active living, social participation and meaningful involvement in the community. Integrating sense of place into the built environment is essential for supporting active ageing, ensuring that older adults can continue to make a positive contribution in their communities and potentially reducing health and social care costs. This project has three core aims: (i) to investigate how sense of place is experienced by older people from different social settings living in diverse neighbourhoods in Brazil and the UK; (ii) to translate these experiences into designs for age friendly communities that support sense of place; and (iii) to better articulate the role of older adults as active placemakers in the design process by involving the community at all stages of the research.We will undertake fieldwork in a total of 18 neighbourhoods (of varying densities and income levels) across 6 case study cities in Brazil (Pelotas, Porto Alegre, and Brasilia) and the UK (Edinburgh, Manchester and Glasgow). We will use a range of methods to achieve the project aims, including sense of place surveys and semi-structured interviews alongside experiential methods including 'go along' walks, photo and video diaries and community mapping exercises to capture the place-based needs of older adults. The new data generated will answer the following research questions: (i) How is sense of place experienced by older adults from different social classes living in diverse neighbourhoods in Brazil and the UK? (ii) What services, amenities and features are needed to create age friendly communities that promote healthy cities and active ageing in different urban and cultural contexts? (iii) How can communities be designed to better integrate the sense of place needs of older adults across different urban and cultural contexts? A community-based participatory approach will be adopted to the research, bringing together all stakeholders in a process of collaborative dialogue and co-design to challenge the hierarchical power relationships that exist when planning 'for' and not 'with' older people. The results will be used to co-create place-making tools and resources which are essential for designing age friendly environments for older adults. Findings will be disseminated to community, policymaker, practitioner and academic audiences through ongoing and end of project knowledge translation activities.