Geographies of Age - Cooperation with TU Wien and ETH Zurich

Duration: 2018-2020

Project partners:

• Centre for the Future of Places, KTH Stockholm
• Centre for Urban Space and Culture (SKuOR), TU Vienna
• ETH CASE Centre for Research on Architecture, Society & the Built Environment, ETH Zurich

Researchers and core team:

• Marie Glaser (ETH),
• Tigran Haas (KTH),
• Sabine Knierbein (TU Vienna)

Liv Christensen (ETH), Monika Leemann (ETH), Stefan Lundberg (KTH), Jing Jing (KTH), Mats Lundström (KTH), Judith Lehner (TU Vienna), Angelika Gabauer (TU Vienna)

KTH Stockholm, TU Vienna and ETH Zurich are carrying out the joint research project
entitled “Geographies of Age. Older people’s access to housing and urban life”. The goal is to propose options for public policies as well as actors on the housing market in the three
growing cities to enhance age-friendly urban environments and to prevent loneliness and social exclusion among elderly.
The project pursues an exploratory mixed- methods approach consisting of a quantitative data set and literature on the housing markets and their different impacts on the housing situation of elderly in the chosen cities with differing welfare systems (Module 1 in 2018-2019).
Combined with qualitative methods such as go-along interviews, multiple sorting tasks (non-verbal) interviews, focus group, socio-spatial mappings and participatory dialogue workshops with key actors and older adults (Module 2, 2019-2020), a rich picture of the interrelation between everyday practices of social life, economic conditions and the built environment is obtained. Contrasting older people’s access to housing and urban life in different geographical urban settings has proven fruitful in order to shed light on the complex issue of age-appropriate living environments.

The project aims at exploring social and spatial dimensions of age-friendly living environments from different local perspectives in three growing cities.

Module 2: Accessibility, qualities, design and use of public indoor (facilities) and outdoor spaces by older persons (access to urban life). In the context of an ageing population questions of access to housing, services and public spaces present growing challenges to many cities. The vision of age-friendly cities is facilitated by processes of digitalisation, individualisation of life-styles, urban regeneration, by new housing arrangements and a variety of services, and so forth. For healthy ageing, the participation in urban life and meaningful activities is fundamental.

In 2019, the partners of the research project - Centre for the Future of Places at KTH Stockholm (Sweden), ETH Centre for Research on Architecture, Society and the Built Environment Zurich (Switzerland), and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space at TU Wien (Austria) – focused in the research module 2 on older people's access to urban life.

Questions of accessibility, qualities, design and use of spaces at the intersection of the public and private spheres were addressed on the basis of a relational understanding of age(ing) as a process and lived space as an analytical field where crossovers between housing and public space research are facilitated. In coordination with the partners, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space carried out numbers of activities during 2019 in order to proceed with the research, disseminate preliminary research results and develop a network of collaborators on Geographies of Age(ing) in Vienna and internationally.

Project activities during 2019

• Interim Workshop for all project partners, Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space on 15th-16th January 2019 in Vienna
• Dialogue Workshop - June 2019, Vienna. Relevant actors from local initiatives, institutions and the city administration were invited to jointly discuss research findings together with the participants of the walking interviews.
• Case study in Zürich - individual and group interviews with senior citiizens (age 75+), followed by a dialogue workshop
• Case study in Stockholm (Farsta and Kungsholmen) - focus group workshops, semi-structured and open-ended group interviews. The study addressed three aspects of public places and spaces (design characteristics, social activities and services) that the elderly respondents found most relevant for their everyday life.

Preliminary findings of the studies will be proceeded and discussed within the collaborating teams. In a next step a book contribution (Routledge) will be conceptualized, written and submitted until mid March 2020. Final conclusions and outcomes will be formulated on the basis of the material