Rethinking the future of Ageing
New Agency
Overview
How will you grow old? Can you live forever? What kind of ancestor do you want to be? Will your house outlive you?
The twenty-first century has ushered in a longevity revolution with the life expectancy of human beings almost doubling in the last hundred years made possible by healthier lifestyles and improved medical care. This is echoed in Australia, which has one of the highest life expectancies in the world.
The ageing of the population has seen the demographics of Australian society changing: one-fifth of its population will be over 65 by 2053. The extension of life has also seen a new age category of over-85s emerging. This puts pressure on the wider community to address the varying experiences of our elders around issues of civic participation, medical care, pensions, public space, entertainment, accessibility, employment and housing.
Growing older tomorrow will be very different than today. The retirement of Australians relies upon the financial security of the home and superannuation. As home ownership is becoming an impossibility for many younger Australians, how does this shift future models of living for the elderly and for society? What can one learn from radical forms of dwelling currently underway in Australia? What models of home ownership can adapt to the maturing of society and a changing market economy?
New Agency is a design research project that poses these questions. Taking the form of a public investigation, the audience is a participant in Sibling Architecture’s research within the gallery to examine and discuss the futures of dwelling through the lens of an ageing population.
The entry point to the exhibition New Agency is an information download: a corridor space presents a dataset of trends; adjacent, interviews with different user groups imagine other ways of living together. A troika of activity stations in the main gallery - for reading, listening and talking - provoke thinking around models of home ownership. Extensive public programming is important to the work of Sibling as a way to collect knowledge from experts, making this knowledge public and providing activity within the exhibition experience. The exhibition included talks on ‘Extending working life for older workers’, ‘Alternative development and an ageing population’ and ‘Ageing in multi-generational households’. Public programming extended to group activities from Chinese Square Dancing with elders to memory game workshop for children with Beci Orpin.
New Agency was exhibited at RMIT Design Hub from 29 August –22 September, 2018, and restaged at Tin Sheds Gallery in Sydney as part of the Sydney Design Festival.
Growing older tomorrow will be very different than today. The retirement of Australians relies upon the financial security of the home and superannuation. As home ownership is becoming an impossibility for many younger Australians, how does this shift future models of living for the elderly and for society?
A troika of activity stations in the main gallery - for reading, listening and talking - provoke thinking around models of home ownership.
What can one learn from radical forms of dwelling currently underway in Australia? What models of home ownership can adapt to the maturing of society and a changing market economy?
Growing older tomorrow will be very different than today. The retirement of Australians relies upon the financial security of the home and superannuation. As home ownership is becoming an impossibility for many younger Australians, how does this shift future models of living for the elderly and for society?
A troika of activity stations in the main gallery - for reading, listening and talking - provoke thinking around models of home ownership.
What can one learn from radical forms of dwelling currently underway in Australia? What models of home ownership can adapt to the maturing of society and a changing market economy?
