An international parallel design studio about designing for well-being in cohousing for older people: Changing perceptions through social engagement in the city

Abstract

This paper presents the activities and results of an innovative parallel design studio held simultaneously in two interior design programs in Montreal, Canada and Diepenbeek, Belgium. Students designed solutions for new ways of living and leisure experiences for older people, in the context of well-being in the city. In various countries over the globe, people are generally living longer and are healthier. New modes of co-housing support aging well, while stimulating residents to engage in social activities. Designing for well-being offers new opportunities for housing, and designers can innovate with new ways of designing beyond existing institutional solutions. In the concerned design studios, students take these types of housing into consideration within scenarios of real urban contexts that generate new ideas of living. This parallel studio included activities stemming from a common interest and shared project location. The activities unfolded over the first semester in the two locations, under supervision of two design studio professors and two PhD Candidates. The first studio (Belgium) explored cohousing and the second one (Canada) explored activities within the social spaces of the same co-housing complex, with doors open to the city centre. First, students in both institutions learned by investigating real needs, complex contexts of designing for wellbeing in housing and studying what stimulates social engagement for older people. Second, students developed various scenarios exploring how subjective well-being is a fundamental human right/need and how design action is a vehicle to promote this idea. The results demonstrate how the design studio activities proposed both social connectedness and intergenerational activities which can be used to connect older persons with the neighborhood. This interuniversity collaboration provides a valuable platform for knowledge exchange and knowledge transfer.