Editorial
Old age and prosperity are closely related
I expect everyone to benefit from a just pension system by then: a system that doesn’t pit young against old, but instead creates social equality and eliminates old-age poverty.
I will simply look at my age as a number, because I doubt very much that my zest for life will diminish in any way. On the contrary, I look forward to growing old in the company of my family.
I would love to be able to look back on these politically turbulent times and think: We warded everything off very well. My worry is that we won’t be able to say that.
Over the next 50 years, we will experience a technological and social revolution such as last occurred between 1870 and 1920. Our generation can’t even imagine what life will be like when we are old.
3 questions for
Good architecture is integrative, promotes social inclusion, and creates spaces that have sensual qualities and that can be effectively used by everybody, no matter what their age. Short paths and easily accessible surroundings enable even people with impaired mobility to move about on their own.
They combine the various facilities that are available in a person’s immediate neighborhood: cafés and shops as well as
infrastructure such as adult daycare centers and kindergartens— all of them embedded within a neighborly environment. Community initiatives, neighborhood networks, and shared households enable residents to give as well as to receive.
This can be done in the planning phase by developing models
that make it easier to network urban planners, architects, building societies, and healthcare providers with one another, and in the implementation phase by using appropriate operating
and administrative concepts.
is an Austrian architect and author of the book
35 percent of the people over 45 in Germany can imagine serving as childminders for other people’s children