THE AESTHETIC OF AGING | ARCHITECTURE FOR THE AGING SELF IN THE ACTIVE ADULT RETIREMENT COMMUNITY
David Babb M. Arch Candidate 2015 University of California Berkely Thesis Advisor Andrew Atwood
THE AESTHETIC OF AGING | ARCHITECTURE FOR THE AGING SELF IN THE ACTIVE ADULT RETIREMENT COMMUNITY
David Babb M. Arch Candidate 2015 University of California Berkely Thesis Advisor Andrew Atwood 2
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THE AESTHETIC OF AGING WRINKLE FADE SPOT BALD BLUR THIN SLOW
RETIREMENT LIFESTYLES THE ACTIVE ADULT COMMUNITY SURVEY OF THE ACTIVE RETIREMENT COMMUNITY
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ABSTRACT Wrinkle. Bald. Shrink. Blur. The aging aesthetic describes the appearance and sensation of the aging person. Society places value on the young aesthetic; which is not having wrinkles, not loosing hair, and not being slow. This study abandons the typically negative cultural connotations of aging skin, hair and bodies for a more ambivalent reading on the markings of the aging aesthetic. Evidence of this aesthetic was assembled to develop an architectural vocabulary adaptable enough to translate the human condition into material and architectural sensitivities. This aesthetic was defined and materialized to offer new insights into its surficial, pervasive, formal, and iterative limits. The site to articulate this aesthetic, as architecture, is the ‘Active Adult Retirement Community (AAC).’ These places, which resemble much of modern suburbia, are more perfect constructions than their age-inclusive counterparts. The active retirement village offers a sense of community and abundance of amenities beyond the typical suburban development and is successful in
confronting the single biggest societal issue of aging; isolation. However successful it is in providing social and active opportunities for its residents, the AAC conforms to and thrives from the societal notion of the ageless self. The notion the ageless self prolongs middle age, as the “leitmotif of contemporary society, conveying little about change and what it means to grow old.” This project searches for an ethic of aging where the personal and societal importance of growing old can be experienced and valued. The architecture of this ethic of aging articulates the appearance and sensations of aging into a transformative space that allows the occupant to find value in being old. A likely point of intervention is the clubhouse. All active retirement communities have a clubhouse, and sometimes a dozen. The clubhouses are the life and cultural centers of the AAC. The diversity of programs, and intersection of the landscape around the clubhouse emphasizes its importance to the community. This architectural proposal is a wrinkly clubhouse in an old people golf course community.
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Elephant Wrinkle , Alex....87, 2013 look, no eyes, 2005, Philippe Tarbouriech Wrinkly hands Wrinkly shirt Untitled (Fold), Acrylic on canvas, 2011, Tauba Auerbac
WRINKLE /riNGk(É™)l/
noun | a slight line or fold in something, especially fabric or the skin of a face verb | make or cause lines or folds | form or become marked with lines or folds.
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WRINKLE AESTHETIC
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WRINKLE MATERIAL Printed metal panels Rough sandstone blocks Charred wood Opposite | Walker Art Center, 2005 by Herzog & de Mueron Minneapolis, MN
Treat Hall, 1909 Johnson + Wales University Denver, CO Sandstone School, 1901 Sandstone, MN
Wrinkle is the most obvious of the aging aesthetic because it is deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness as a first sign of aging. As an architectural device, it is a versatile and transformative aesthetic because of the multiple ways to interpret what it is. There are a few types of wrinkles; but all depend on the slight folds and tiny lines that make them. Wrinkles can be honest about what made them. The old woman on the previous page is the perfect definition for an honest wrinkle because her wrinkles are clearly from years of smiling; years of wrinkling up her face with joy. A wrinkle on paper or fabric could be evidently from a folding process. Wrinkle can express an intent or process that made it. It can also be a mysterious artifact with no particular motivation for its tiny patterning. The wrinkly cotton shirt is a good example of this, as no intentioned force encouraged those wrinkles into being; yet they are. Wrinkles can be pervasive and articulate a surface down to its very being; like the elephant’s skin. This type of wrinkle has sharp dimensions and a sensational, rich surface. Others can be merely surficial, or weak wrinkles that can easily be replaced, stretched or ironed out. These both have dimension and can be felt. A photograph of wrinkle though, feels smooth, but looks wrinkly. This feature demonstrates the versatility of the wrinkle aesthetic. Wrinkly materials besides skin, fabric and paper include a myriad of architectural materials. Metal panels can be bent or manipulated to resemble wrinkles and relate to the process of wrinkling. Other materials like rough sandstone, or charred wood look and feel wrinkly but are not, actually made of wrinkles. The tiny lines and folds formed by these rough surfaces can appear to be wrinkles when assembled on a building scale. Wrinkle can also be suggested through printing material. The printed metal panels used on the Walker Arts Museum by Herzog and de Mueron are flat but look wrinkly.
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WRINKLE ARCHITECTURE
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Faded wood 19th-century albumen silver photograph Old dog Caddo Lake, Texas, Mariusz Cieszewski, 2013
FADE /fÄ d/
verb | gradually grow faint and disappear | loss or cause to lose color or brightness noun | process of becoming less bright
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FADE AESTHETIC
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FADE MATERIAL Cypress Wood Fabric Plastic
House on Punkville Rd, 2008 Bruce Norelius Studio Maine, USA UV faded floor
Opposite | Torvdalshalsen, 2005 by 70°N Arkitektur Lofoten Islands, Norway
Fading is the loss of color or brightness. It should be associated with graying or whiting, which are wellknown aged-hair qualities. Whiting and graying of hair has to do with the loss of melanin, the color pigments in skin and hair. With age less melanin is in the hair so it grows lighter and lighter. Although sunlight is not the cause for gray hair, melanin is related to the sun. These pigments react to sun exposure by tanning the skin. Sun exposure is the overriding theme for fade aesthetic.The power of constant UV exposure over time has pervasive bleaching abilities. Wood is the material of fading because it fades in life and in death. Trees without bark, like the bald cypress, bleach while they are still growing. They gray forest of the cypress swamp is a beautifully faded landscape. When wood is stained and exposed to the sun, it will fade where it’s uncovered. Furniture and carpets that were stationary for years on a wood floor can be deciphered from the silhouettes that were not faded by light. Photographs, cloth, paint, and plastics also fade when exposed to UV light. Vibrant colors become subdued. Fading is a gentle aesthetic that is not evident unless it is compared. When compared to its former self, or a newer version, fading becomes apparent. Beach homes in the northeast with cedar shakes are a favored fade aesthetic. Time and longevity are qualities associated with the cedar siding that bleaches in the sun and weather.
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FADE ARCHITECTURE
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Cheetah spots Sun spots, Appaloosa horse spots Spotted southern gecko Spotted Lichen, Steven Friedman, 2014
SPOT /sp채t/
noun | a small round or roundish mark, differing in color or texture from the surface around it | a small mark or stain
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SPOT AESTHETIC
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SPOT MATERIAL Copper Steel Zinc Opposite | de Young Museum, 2005 Herzog & de Mueron, Fong & Chan San Francisco, CA
Lourve Abu Dhabi, 2015 est. Jean Nouvel Abu Dhabi, UAE Spots Installation, 2007 Christoph Wagner, et. al. Berlin, Germany
Spots are also related to sunlight. Sun spots or age spots form from years of sun exposure and are damaged areas of skin that darken or lighten in color. These spots are age freckles and accumulated over time. Some animals like the appaloosa horse also develop spots on their fur as they age.The aesthetic of spots is mostly on solid or furry materials that are only on the surface. Spots can appear in a diversity of colors, sizes and densities but are always roundish. Metals are the most evident spotting material. Steel rusts in spots, bronze tarnishes in spots and copper patinas in spots. These processes are from chemical reactions between the metal and oxygen. The copper patina has long been used as a metaphor for aging and is a well-known and beloved aging aesthetic. Wood can also spot over time as the wood releases tannin pigments. Paints or stains often hide these spots. But with time the tannins may push past those barriers. Sunlight cast through faรงade holes looks like spots on a surface. These spots are dynamic and move with the sun across another surface. Shadow, or light spots are a unique condition of the aging aesthetic as they can transform typically unspotted surfaces into spotted. They are independent of the material they are cast onto, but originate from the holey material that is making them.
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Mt. St. Helen’s, 1980, not listed Empty parking Happy Bald Man, Fred Jenkins, 2011 Head of a Wood Stork, Dorothy Manera, 2012 Christian monk
BALD /bôld/
adjective | having a scalp wholly or partly lacking hair | not covered by usual fur, hair, feathers | not covered by usual leaves, bark or vegetation | not having any extra detail or explanation; plain or blunt
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BALD AESTHETIC
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BALD MATERIAL Smooth Concrete Terrazzo Concrete Opposite | Congresso Nacional do Brasil, 1957-1961 by Oscar Neimeyer Brasilia, Brazil
Brasilia Palace Hotel ,1958 by Oscar Neimeyer Brasilia, Brazil Traditional Japanese bedroom
Bald is only second to wrinkle as the most dreaded of the aging aesthetic. Bald is not hairy and not furry. It implies that it used to be; but is not any longer. Unlike the other aesthetics of aging, bald is the removal of a condition; not like the addition of wrinkles or spots. Bald landscapes, like empty parking lots or the forest after the Mt. St. Helen’s explosion, are places that have lost their fur. Buddhist monks and Franciscan monks shave their heads to be bald as a rejection of worldly aesthetics. Differently than baldness through aging, intentional baldness is valued. Bald could also be something that never had hair or fur, or doesn’t yet. Another type of bald describes something plain or blunt without additional ornamentation. These types of bald have less to do with age but are constructive in creating an architectural vocabulary of bald. In these readings many modernist or minimalist spaces can be considered bald. The example of the Congresso Nacional in Brasilia is doubly bald.This photo shows the building before occupancy. It is bald before the furniture and human inhabitation occupy it. This type of baldness is temporary. The permanent baldness is arises from the glass and concrete and potentially the curved geometries, which simply exist without explanation. This aesthetic reading of bald again shows the beauty in intentional baldness. Bald materials are less easily defined. Concrete, especially polished concrete seems bald. But then, it never was furry.The formwork impression on some cast concrete is actually the opposite of bald as the details and transferred materiality of the impression makes the concrete furrier. Bald materials then are, dependent on their lack of detail. They are flat, smooth, uninterrupted. 20
BALD ARCHITECTURE
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Liverpool, 2014 Callie Duncan Eye chart Iris Apfel Foggy Forest, Joni Niemela Blurry street
BLUR /blər/
verb | make or become unclear or less distinct noun | a thing that cannot be see or heard clearly | an indistinct memory or impression of events
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BLUR AESTHETIC
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BLUR MATERIAL Glass Fog Marble Opposite | UK Pavilion, Shanghai Expo 2010 Thomas Heatherwick China
Office for Soho China, 2013 AIM Architecture Shanghai, China The Blur Building, 2002 Swiss National Expo Diller & Scorfidio Yverdon Les Bains, Switzerland
Blur is a personal aesthetic of outward perception. It is a vital reading of the aging aesthetic because it is what the aged-person sees and hears rather than the outsider.The devolution of sight and hearing are negative realities of aging. Blurry vision is not just an unwelcome condition, but can be a dangerous one. Falls in old age are often tied to poor eyesight because of tripping hazards and difficulty in perceiving depth. Blurry images can be seductive in their ambiguity, especially through photography or screening devices. Blur is understood through adjacencies. When a blurry image is seen with clear vision, it is seductive and appealing. If everything were blurry, it would be less pleasing. Blurry landscapes naturally occur in fog. Fog supports this reading of blur, as adjacent objects are less blurry and more obscured in the distance. Screening devices like frosted materials or layered materials blur objects that are farther away. When objects or bodies push against a frost material they are less blurry and more defined. Blurry architecture obscures boundaries, forms or depths. The UK Pavilion by Heatherwick is a blurry cube where the boundary between cube and not cube is ambiguous. This project shows how the gradient of blur is crucial. A room with glass walls and ceilings shown in the office below, blurs the boundaries of space into more infinite or overlapping interpretations. Glass or translucent materials can create blurry separations. But materials themselves can blur as they loose their form. A marble step used to be a rectangle but with years of use can become a blurry rectangle with a deformed boundary.
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BLUR ARCHITECTURE
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Florida Pine Meadow, Flickr user Steve Jobs Macbook Air unveiling, 2009 Erwin H. (1909) Berlin, 2011 “Happy at 100� Thormaehlen Photography Palm Trees and Thin Clouds on Wilshire Andy Sternberg Kansas Flint Hills Project James Nedresky
THIN /THin/
adjective | having opposite surfaces or sides close together, of little thickness or depth | having few parts or members relative to area covered or filled; sparse adverb | with little thickness or depth verb | make or become less dense, crowded, or numerous | make or become smaller in width or thickness
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THIN AESTHETIC
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THIN MATERIAL Fabric Wood Stainless steel Opposite | Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, 2009 by Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA Kensington Gardens, London, UK
Curtain Wall House, 2005 Shigeru Ban Tokyo, Japan Great Wall of China,1386-1858 China
Popular culture places high value on the thin; thin waistlines, thin computers, thin structures. Thin as a consequence of aging is not as beloved; thinning hair, thin lips and fragile bones. This type of thin is about a change in thickness. Things used to be fuller, lusher, and denser and have thinned. Thin as an architectural aesthetic also is about something that used to be fuller. The heavy stonework of arched construction was thinned with the development of buttresses of Gothic cathedrals. Buildings could be taller and thinner with their loss of mass. The evolution of thin architecture is a continued search for the absolute thinnest. As technological advances have allowed thin to occur, architecture has quickly adopted it. The emergence of steel and decline of masonry relate to this evolution of thin.
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THIN ARCHITECTURE
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Mississippi Delta, Google Maps, Columbia University Mimosa pudica, shrinking plant Learn from Nature, Henricus Peters, 2011 little old lady reading..., Olof Werngren, 2007 Turtle in shell
SHRINK /SHriNGk/
verb | become or make smaller in size or amount; contract or cause to contract | (especially of a person’s face or other part of the body) withered, wrinkled, or shriveled through old age or illness | (of clothes or material) become smaller as a result of being immersed in water
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SHRINK MATERIAL Wood planks Concrete Foam Opposite | Foundation Querini Stampalia, 1963 Carlo Scarpa Venice, Italy
Shrinking City 2010 Detroit, MI
Nagakin Capsule Tower, 1972 Kisho Kurokawa Tokyo, Japan
Shrink is active aesthetic. It is highly dynamic. Landscapes shrink, like glaciers or rainforests. Animals shrink into defense like turtles and corals. Shrinkage is something in flux. A little old lady has a shrinking body because of the loss of calcium and bone density. Shrink is therefore related to thin, as it may be a result of something that is loosing density. Shrink is also related to wrinkle. Shrunken objects can have wrinkly surfaces as a result of their change in dimension. Shrink comes from the Swedish skrynka, which means to wrinkle. In materials, shrink remains an active and dynamic characteristic. Temperature causes materials to shrink and expand. Wall assemblies, bricks and wooden floors all shift with seasonal and daily variation. The materials and space between them actually shrink when they are cold. Dryness and compaction are different ways to shrink. The soft ground in wetlands shrinks when you step on it. Foundations for buildings can do the same over time and cause differential settlement as the space between soil molecules shrinks. Detroit and Venice are related because urban landscapes shrink too. The aerial footprint of a city can shrink as places are abandoned. Venice shrinks vertically as the lower floors are flooded by water. The living space of the Venetian home used to be four stories but is shrunken into three. As cities grow denser, new living spaces shrink to accommodate more people. The capsule living proposed by Japanese metabolists, shrunk living into the tiniest dimension it could.
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Slow erosion on canyons Slow Loris, Arup Shaw Slow couple Galapagos Tortoise #333 A Lacemaker in Bruges Richard MN Photography
SLOW /slĹ?/
adjective | moving or operating, or designed to do so, only at a low speed; not quick or fast | taking or lasting a long time verb | live or work less actively or intensely
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SLOW AESTHETIC
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SLOW MATERIAL Rammed earth wall Granite Bitumen pitch drop experiment Opposite | Cidade de Cultura de Galizia, 2000-2013 by Peter Eisenman, Galicia, Spain
Ka’ba at Al-Masjid Al-Haram Mecca, Saudia Arabia Great Wall of China, 400 B.C. -1600 A.D., China
The slow aesthetic is something that is not fast. The sloth, the slow loris and the giant tortoise are all slow. These animals are popular because of their lethargic and gentle movements. Slow is not aggressive and not threatening. It is interesting then, that the slow old driver can cause such furry and animosity even though he is inherently non-aggressive and non-threatening. In today’s culture the speed and immediate gratification override the popularity of the slow aesthetic. Money is also a reason for the decline of the slow aesthetic, as well-crafted, slow creations are too expensive. The ambition of a slower lifestyle is becoming more popular as people try to redefine their priorities. The old tale of the tortoise and the hair places value slow, as slow and steady wins the race. When you are old everything gets slower. You walk slower, you eat slower you take a longer time to get dressed. This slow life is something that should be more closely considered, as there is finally time to think. Slow materials include those that take millennia to make like granite. The ‘worlds longest experiment,’ the pitch drop test, at the University of Queensland records how long it takes for an extremely viscous material to drain. It can take as long as 10 years for a drop of the bitumen to fall. Slow architecture takes a long time to design and build, like anything by Eisenman.The world’s slowest architecture is the Great Wall of China that took over 2,000 years to build. Slow architecture can also be places where people go to be slow. The Haj pilgrimage to Mecca is a time to slow down one’s life for prayer. Because of the crowds the experience of the place is slow, and the occupation of the space and 7 rotations around the Ka’ba takes a lot of time.
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SLOW ARCHITECTURE
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After defining the aesthetics of aging, the material palette was articulated into a set of cubes. These aging cubes allow for new understandings of the aesthetic. Wood and fabrics were the basis of this set of manipulations because they can act more like an aging body with more life-like qualities. Wood appeared often as a material reference when defining the terms of aging. Wood is organic so it shrinks, spots, thins, or balds with environmental changes and time, like the human body. The surfical wrapping of fabrics over the cubes was very productive for words like wrinkle and shrink. Wrinkle produced the most cubes, as it is very easy to construct and manipulate surfaces into different types of wrinkles.There are many more iterations of wrinkle possible even within the current constriants. Like some of the other manipulations, wrinkle reforms the cube. The form of the cube is changed as the paper, fabric, or leather negotiates the edges and seams. The terms that easily lent themselves to a surface and cube construction may suggest a systems approach to the aesthetic where the material cannot act alone to achieve an aesthetic in the same way that faded wood can. This suggests that wrinkle is dependent on its surface and the armature that supports it. Working with the natural properties of the wood by encouraging fading with bleeches and sun exposure is a more direct form of manipulation than surficial wrapping. The different faded cubes come from a difference in bleeching solutions, sun exposure and pre-treatment, like staining. Spotting on the wood comes from the tannins that occur naturally and color it. The spotting at the surface of the wood was encouraged by baking the wood in the oven at various temperatures for several hours. The darker spots come from hotter baking. Form pouring for wrinkle and bald again suggest a set of parts to achieve the aesthetic, this time dependent on removal. So like the terms dependent on surface and armature, terms that are made into poured objects are dependent on the form that held them. The cast bald cube is furry because of the material removed from it. To achieve baldness the fabrics and surfaces had to be scratched, sanded, 38
plucked and cut off. The bald cubes are the most sensual to hold as the wear of the eroded materials provides more tactility than fading or spotting may produce. The wrinkly cubes are quite tactile as they were soft, or sharp or subtle in thier folds.This set of cubes has a tactile richness not yet explored in this study. Considering the tactility may produce useful considerations when reproducing these qualities in an architecture. Thin cubes produced so far depend heavily on thier tactility as thin relates to light. When the thin cubes are picked up the fraility or delicacy of thier condition is clear, in a way merely looking at them cannot explain. Blurry cubes are depedent on an object and lens in most cases. The blur obscured the appearance of the grain of the wood by tinting or reflecting. These surfaces also blur the feeling of the wood into something silkly and non-woody. Some terms like slow, are less easily manipulated into cubes because they are less suggestive of materials. Slow may be much less of an aesthetic as previously assumed. Slow seems to be more about experiencing a space or an understanding of time. But these material manipulations produced little insight into this aesthetic. The next material palettes to explore are more form pouring and metals. The metals will reveal inherent aging qualities like spoting, thinning and maybe wrinkling. Drawing the material manipulations as architectures allowed me to demonstrate how I am evaluating these materials. The drawings are the first attempts at imaging what kind of space exists within these cubes. Wrinkle was easier to manipulate again, as imagining what is happening inside of wrinkly space is inherently spatial. Bald space, and spotted space are more difficult to section, but have a rich surficial quality and suggest layered system of construction.
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WRINKLE CUBES
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WRINKLE CUBES
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WRINKLE CUBES
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BALD CUBES
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BALD CUBES
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SHRINK CUBES
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SHRINK CUBES
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SPOT CUBES
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SPOT CUBES
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Father Spent Time Threshold C-type prints, 20”x20” From Still Here by Lydia Goldblatt
USA counties with residents 65 + in 1990
USA counties with residents 65 + in 2010 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
AMERICA’S AGING
65 + Housing Diagram Above | 75% Typical House | 7 % Unassisted Community | 5% Supported Housing | 10% Shared Housing | Assisted Community 3%
It is well-known that America is growing older. More Americans will be 65+ and comprise an increasingly high percentage of the total population. Today the average county percentage is 12% elderly and by 2030 it will be 17%. Everywhere will be a Florida. The largest issues facing America’s elderly are declining health, increasing financial burden and isolation. Architecture can react to health and financial issues, but never solve them. Architecture can however respond directly to isolation by creating environments that encourage and allow social connectivity.
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Advertisements from “Lifestyle Communities”
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ACTIVE ADULT COMMUNITY Also called Active Retirement Community or Adult Lifestyle Community
noun | real estate developments that offer independent, relatively maintenance-free to residents aged 55 and older | Can be age-restricted, or age-targeted | all AAC’s have a clubhouse | typically have amenities such as pools, courts, community rooms, golf courses |exist at multiple scales with a variety of housing types | the larger developments have their own shopping and churches | invented by Del Webb, an American real estate developer in 1960, with the creation of Sun City Palm Desert, Arizona | common in Arizona, Florida and California, but exist in every state 64
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ACTIVE ADULT RETIREMENT AMENITIES
Images in Sun City, AZ by Lucy Nicholson Mesa Val Vista, AZ Mesa Las Palmas, AZ Sun City Palm Desert, CA
The active adult retirement community was a new and revolutionary concept when debuted in 1960 with Del Webb’s Sun City Arizona. It was a massive social engineering experiment. In the 1960s, this style planning was out of the box thinking and innovation at its finest. Nothing like it had ever existed. Webb’s business publication touted Sun City, Arizona as “The town that changed America’s view on retirement (The Web Spinner, 2, January 1962).” These developments were risky enterprises as the lifestyle and environment was so unfamiliar. Yet, Del Webb did not slowly develop a master plan for active adult communities. He instead simultaneously planned and built three lifestyle communities to appeal “to all climate zones” and garner wider national attention, with construction in Arizona, Florida and California. The diversity of campus amenities, site selection for a temperate winter climate and emphasis on affordability appealed to thousands of Americans looking to live out an active retirement.This scheme has proven successful as countless newer housing developments follow the Del Webb model for active aging-restricted communities. This report surveys the landscape of active retirement communities beginning with the original Del Webb projects. The survey then investigates age-restricted environments in the United States that have arisen after the inception of these developments. The report investigates the varied geographies, scales and times that these projects were built in effort to discover pervasive themes and relationships that these communities have produced. 66
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SUN CITY ARIZONA
“Sun City Cheerleader,” Todd Anthony, 2013 Sun City, AZ, Stephen Tamiesie
Sun City, Arizona was the first of Del Webb’s active retirement communities. It was opened January 1, 1960; significant because Arizona’s mild winter is part of the Sun City appeal. Over 100,000 visited this development the first weekend it was opened, with hundreds of housing purchases that week. The main reason for moving to Sun City is for the abundant and diverse recreational spaces. All of these facilities were completed before the opening date to ensure the Sun City lifestyle was available from day one. Sun City is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area and is home for close to 40,000 residents. The adjacent Sun City West has approximately 25,000 residents. Sun City has been heavily researched academically in sociology, psychology and health care. Photographers and the media have also documented the residents and lifestyle of the community. The architecture of Sun City is very typical of any 1960s suburb with the majority of the housing being 2 bedroom single family homes. The community is different in its planning from an average suburb as walking trails, green spaces, golf courses and club houses are easily accessible by the residents. Known as the “City of Volunteers,” Sun City residents assist in elderly care centers, theater programs, grounds maintenance and animal rescue within the city.
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SUN CITY FLORIDA
Sun City Center Photos, 2014
Sun City, Florida was part of the second phase of Del Webb’s Sun Cities. With the completion of this location, Sun City, Arizona, and the communities in southern California, Del Webb offered an active retirement in each mild winter zone in the country. Sun City, Florida is part of the Tampa metro area and has about 20,000 residents. It is significantly smaller than its Arizona counterpart. It has a diversity of housing options from single family, duplex and apartments. Like Arizona it has its own shopping centers and churches independent of the adjacent communities. These images were collected from the official resident’s website for Sun City Center.They describe daily life enjoying the lush grounds, quiet streets and golf tournaments. The image at the bottom right with small car and electric golf carts was posted as, “Out-of-town driver, not knowing any better, squeezes car into golf cart parking spot in Sun City Center.” This news appears like a public shaming to maintain order in the rule revering and abiding community.
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THE VILLAGES AT LEESBURG FLORIDA
L+L Photography, Alex French, BuzzFeed Oktoberfest, The Villages News Fire batton, Sam Markman Photography
The Villages is a sprawling 32 square mile active retirement community in central Florida. It has over 100,000 residents, 55 + of course who moved here for the lifestyle not the location. When residents of The Villages talk about other retirement communities across the country, they all say ‘When we visited we had to move here.” Currently over 250 homes are sold every month. The Villages is a relatively new development with groundbreaking in 1999 by developer H. Gary Morse. This is not a Del Webb property, but it has replicated and improved the original Sun City model. Golf carts are the main mode of transportation around the community and the 40 golf courses on site. Golfing is included free in The Villages lifestyle. There seem to be more festivals and large scale events at the Villages than the Sun Cities. ‘Spanish Square’ is one of the nieghborhood town centers with a live band every night of the year. Oktoberfest, Christmas and 4th of July parades are all part of life in this community. The architecture of The Villages is typical Florida stucco homes, with screen front and rear porches. These single family homes are arranged around 4-5 neighborhood centers stylized as old Florida towns. It seems the urban life here goes beyond the clubhouse and thrives in the several ‘village’ centers around the community. Several large lakes spot the campus and provide private waterfronts and backdrops for the clubhouses and village squares.
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Active adult retirement communities have been studied for decades with numerous articles beginning in the 1980s. The psychological benefit of aging in an active social environment among peers is an undisputed benefit of the AAC. The social benefit of minimizing the threat of isolation in old age is a measure of the success of building these environments for people’s physical contact. The physical health benefits of the ARC are less studied but gerontologists agree that the active lifestyle promotes healthy living in old age. Although overall these communities benefit the social well being of the residents, some studies suggest the limits to social inclusion. The social inclusion at the AAC succeeds because of the similarity of its residents. Widows can become outcasts when couples stop inviting them to dinner and events. Often this is because the couples are naive to the desire to be included from the widows who don’t want to loose their friends after they have lost their husbands. Widows often form new friend groups with other widows after the loss of a spouse. Another group that has difficulty assimilating into
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the culture of the AAC are “snow birds”. Snowbirds are seasonal residents who live up North and winter in Arizona or Florida. Snowbirds spend about 6 months on average in each location, and some spend even more time in their southern retirement havens beyond the coldest months. Permanent residents erroneously believe that the snowbirds will only be down for a few months so they don’t bother to form friendships with the migrants. Snowbirds often have their strongest friendship among other seasonal residents.
“Sure I’m lonely. But it’s better to be lonely in the sunshine than back in Cincinnati.” - Women in her 80s, St. Petersburg, 1962
A final social finding of the modern AAC is the influx of newer younger residents. The generational influx of the baby boomers is creating social unrest as the ‘old’ people are increasingly excluded and
isolated from activities that newer younger old people exclude them from. The influx of new residents though, is what is promoting the largescale renovations of the AACs and clubhouses. Florida was a well-established winter haven for decades before the Del Webb retirement revolution. A key to Florida’s success was the railroads from the frigid northeast that delivered trainloads of passengers for extended winter stays to enjoy Florida’s mild winter. Places like Santa Cruz, California, Ft. Lauderdale and St. Petersburg, Florida were well known cities for aging. Eventually Arizona also developed as a retirement center with Youngtown, Arizona. Arizona did not become the retirement mecca it is today until after the opening of Del Webb’s Sun City. Before the 1960s, 90% of Americans stayed in the communities they were from to age. Del Webb studied these places for inspiration for the creation of the Sun Cities. St. Petersburg became well known because of its large number of retirees. The “Green benches of St. Petersburg” are romanticized visions of the past were the city residents could sit along the sidewalk and be a part
of the busy downtown. These romantic images of residents, mostly elderly, enjoying the urban life were sent across the country as postcards. Thomas Breen, of Webb Corp., had a different outlook when he visited St. Petersburg, which “depressed him with its drab rooming houses and its thousands of elderly people ‘just sitting around on benches (Time Magazine).’ ” Interviews of the elderly residents in St. Petersburg seemed to agree with Breen. “I can’t think of anything useful to do any more, and I don’t want to sit around doing nothing. So I just sleep in longer spells, hoping it will end,” said a retired foreman in St. Petersburg. An 80-year-old woman said she sleeps in until late and eats late as to combine breakfast and lunch. “ Sure I’m lonely. But it’s better to be lonely in the sunshine than back in Cincinnati (Time Magazine).”
“We’re not lonely at all, and the people are so friendly here.” - Mable Mead, 70s, Sun City Arizona, 1962
So the retirement-aged city attracts new residents but appears to offer a low level of satisfaction among its residents. Del Webb’s philosophy championed self-directed activity as the solution to this dissatisfaction. The abundance of activity, and active resident mind set distinguished Sun City in its inception. Residents of Sun City Arizona were interviewed with a very different opinion than the St. Petersburg residents. “People say, ‘but don’t you miss you friends, don’t you miss Mason City?’ Those dear friends yes, but not Mason City. We’re not lonely at all, and the people are so friendly here (Time Magazine).” Loneliness therefore seems resolved in place and activity.The woman continued saying that people feel like they are not competing with anyone in Sun City, there is camaraderie of shared age. In a way the AAC is the magic bullet to social isolation among the elderly.
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