It takes
a village.
The correlation between increasing populations and decreasing real-life social connection presents one of the saddest ironies of our time. How can we harness design to foster nourishing relationships, promote intergenerational togetherness and avoid community severance?
Photo: Jonny Gios on Unsplash
POSSIBILITIES
Loneliness is a deeply personal experience associated with a negative feeling that people have when the relationships they have do not match up to those they would like to have.
Caroline Abrahams Charity Director, Age UK
Structurally embedded in our cities, UK society’s well-publicised loneliness problem – brought into sharper focus post-pandemic – is only intensifying in 2022, with large, crowded cities generally the worst culprits, and London often cited as the ‘world capital’ of loneliness. It’s not just the elderly either, with more and more of us, hailing from an array of demographics, experiencing first-hand how isolation feels.
Survey analysis from the Campaign to End Loneliness suggests it’s worse than during the height of Covid-19. Between December 2021 and February 2022, 3.3 million people in Britain were found to be ‘chronically lonely’, compared with 2.6 million in May 2020.
One million people aged 16-29 have also reported consistent loneliness this year. Despite restrictions lifting, many folk have found themselves unable to rejoin or rebuild their networks, and are suffering with various strains of isolation. The interpersonal variety involves feeling generally separate from others, while social loneliness is about feeling alienated from a group. There’s also intellectual loneliness – feeling out of sync with or on a different wavelength to family, friends, peers; and cultural loneliness – isolation due to lifestyle change or cultural severance.
“For years, health psychologists have produced extensive evidence regarding the negative effects of loneliness on physical health, particularly in elderly members of society,” says Hoare Lea’s chartered community psychologist Dr Paul Hanna. “Recently, research has highlighted that loneliness doesn’t just affect physical health and the elderly; it can have a detrimental impact on the physical and mental health of us all. I have seen, first-hand, the effects of loneliness on the wellbeing of people from every walk of life.”
Contributing factors are multifarious. As well as the way our social systems are constructed, there are rapidly changing lifestyle habits and societal trends in the mix, including declining community participation and an increase in one-person households.
At Sällbo housing experiment, Sweden. Photo courtesy of Helsingborgshem
Social barriers
In terms of the built environment, both literal and figurative walls have sprung up between us – bricks and mortar and beyond. Busy roads sever communities, and our cities have been car-centric for so long – built to prioritise vehicle accessibility – that a traffic queue is a more common everyday sight than a chance instance of human connection. If population mobility and opportunities for social exchange are not considered in the opening paragraphs of a placemaking design brief, if footfall, wayfinding and flow are not sewn into its fabric, then people continue the often insular experience of travelling by car – which also comes with its own set of environmental consequences – and interpersonal contact is designed out.
While digitalisation can be harnessed for good – take the text message services that encourage over-50s at risk of social isolation and digital exclusion to visit nearby parks by detailing local weather reports, activities of interest and travel information – it frequently acts as another wall blocking
human-to-human interaction. Resulting in fewer opportunities for citizens to meet in public spaces, it also makes people less likely to accept differences in others who may speak, act and look different to themselves. Increasingly, daily errands are completed from behind a screen, with people glued to messaging apps and plugged into earphones as they conduct business and network to keep up with hustle culture, or escape the city throng through their music or favourite podcast.
It’s all having a negative knock-on effect in terms of our health – as impactful as smoking a bunch of cigarettes a day (Holt-Lunstad, 2010) – and studies suggest it’s costing the economy billions per year.
“I have witnessed the steady erosion of physical spaces such as community centres, social clubs, and veteran clubs through the withdrawal of funding, urban redevelopment and lack of financial viability,” says Dr Paul Hanna. “Indeed, even the social connection people once had when popping to the local shop has largely been replaced with more ‘efficient’ self-service checkouts. Yet there is extensive evidence on the positive physical and mental health impacts of such spaces, places, activities and interactions.”
As is evident in myriad tales of displacement, our living environment and the sense of permission it engenders – the feeling that you’re not only allowed to be there but that your presence is welcome – is inextricably linked to belonging and identity. So, optimising our habitats for human use is crucial for a healthy society.
Our contemporary issues are interconnecting and it is clear that spatial planning in urban areas could offer up some solutions.
Green spaces, third places
High-rise residential buildings, prone to overcrowding, often give rise to feelings of estrangement and disconnect, but these can be somewhat counteracted by access to nature – being able to see the sky, regularly be among greenery, hear birdsong. Of course, inner city noise and air pollution discourages wildlife, and it’s hard to hear birdsong over roaring traffic. Today, with car-free inner cities increasingly the goal, pedestrianised public spaces proving successful public spaces, and the recognition that connection with nature is integral to society, health and economy, footfall and flow in the great outdoors are beginning to be put front and centre.
Placemakers are weaving across-the-board access to nature into plans, plus multi-use social and educational spaces rather than simply profit-driven units. They’re aiming for more intergenerational integration (which TV shows such as Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds and Old People’s Home for Teenagers have helped promote the merits of more widely) and a sense of diverse, productive community over young, exclusive metropolis.
Urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s concept of the ‘third place’, predicated around the idea that social purpose is more than simply a pleasant plus, advocates the importance of informal public gathering places to shaping an engaged working society and even a functioning democracy. A big fan of the beer garden – not to mention the post office, the local swimming pool – he saw these places as status-levellers, as forums for grassroots politics, psychological support, and the promotion of social vitality and participation.
Community spaces and neighbourhood environments can be a key way of encouraging social connection.
Caroline Abrahams Charity Director, Age UK
With the home the ‘first place’, where most time is spent, in privacy and relatively isolated, and workplaces and educational institutions the more formal ‘second place’, taking up a similarly significant portion of time during which people tend to perform a professional character and are not free to be entirely themselves, the value of the ‘third place’ lies in its neutral-ground nature as a relaxed ‘bumping place’. Attendance is voluntary, and there’s an opportunity to establish new bonds.
Safe in the knowledge that these are places primarily for leisure, where socialising is officially approved, we have an antidote to ‘negative politeness’. (This is avoiding interaction or small talk on public transport, for instance, for fear of interrupting or encroaching on someone’s precious personal space and time.) Having evolved to thrive in smaller groups, we find the village-like feeling of third places – men’s sheds, farmers’ markets – offer relief from the intensity of overpopulated urban life, and permission to make connections without being deemed an annoyance or threat. They reduce anxieties and make people more comfortable with trying a new social experience.
Station Hill, Reading. Image: Tomorrow AB
We need to inspire more people of all ages from the wider population into retirement communities, so they can see what fantastic places they are.
Mark Wilkinson Director, Hoare Lea
At Sällbo housing experiment, Sweden. Photo courtesy of Helsingborgshem and West Byfleet - Retirement Villages Group
Instilling a love for later living
“Libraries, coffee shops and parks all act as community hubs, and even supermarkets and banks provide a space for older people to establish connections,” says Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK – whose free phone lines provide a valued source of support, confidential advice, kindness and conversation. “A lack of easy-to-access spaces can impact upon older people’s satisfaction with their neighbourhood and its facilities, intensifying feelings of isolation. So, as well as having these spaces, it’s vital that things such as mobility issues and seating are considered.
“Often, new homes are built in areas with poor transport links and away from the centre of communities, shops and other infrastructure, making independent living difficult. Increasing the availability of accessible, adaptable homes, so that people can live well and independently, is essential to the long-term needs of an ageing population. As is rethinking traditional housing to create community-orientated neighbourhoods designed to help people maintain connections as they age.”
Last year, our deep dive into this very subject saw TV’s Angela Rippon and industry experts, including The Associated Retirement Community Operators, address the need to instil a love for later living. They discussed cultural perceptions of ageing, planning and policy frustrations, and the importance of community and wellbeing-led environments. “The idea of living in a retirement village has a real image problem,” Angela said. “It’s clear there are many fantastic, fit-for-purpose communities that consider design and affordability, along with health and wellbeing and social benefits, so it feels to me this is a sector that really needs to tackle public perception if we are to see the transformation required.”
Plenty of integrated retirement communities are now being designed in anticipation of significant social change, making intergenerational togetherness a principal goal and focusing on the positive perception of later living to ensure the successful blending of communities, generations and demographics. At The Chocolate Quarter development just outside of Bristol – where residents enjoy pottery, swimming, regular concerts and more – teachers bring in local schoolchildren on a weekly basis to enjoy pizza at the stylish on-site restaurant, guaranteeing regular intergenerational contact. The retirement living complex being part of the route for events such as the Keynsham 10K run gives residents the feeling of being part of the action.
“Many of these integrated retirement communities are leading the residential sector in terms of quality, but we need them in every town and village across the UK if we are to truly cater to what the population needs,” said Hoare Lea Residential Director Mark Wilkinson. “They have a vital role to play in the community; once we see that integration – and people experience the benefits they offer – the misconceptions around retirement villages will become a thing of the past.”
Retirement design is, indeed, starting to lead the way, but it’s a model that needs to be extending to residential design generally, and beyond. Look at the worrying loneliness stats of university halls – whose billing as the setting for the best times of young people’s lives can put upsetting emphasis on what can be an incredibly isolating experience if personalities don’t easily click, close relationships don’t spark up quickly and things don’t pan out as expected. Design needs to facilitate a series of alternative opportunities for connection in cases such as these.
“We have seen loneliness addressed through community creation in the integrated retirement living sector where the design of buildings and amenities actively encourages social interaction,” Mark Wilkinson continues. “This approach is beginning to extend to the wider residential sector. Community creation is central to our scheme at Station Hill [Reading] where the variety of indoor and outdoor spaces creates multiple touchpoints for interaction.”
Scandinavia is at the forefront of the shift, with multigenerational housing experiments such as Sällbo (the name mashes together the Swedish words for ‘companionship’ and ‘living’). In Helsingborg, the over-70s making up the resident majority mix with the 18-25s, both natives and refugees. Social cohesion is encouraged through spaces built for productive interaction, incentives such as free wifi in communal areas, and a contract that sees them agree to spend two hours a week, minimum, socialising with neighbours. Interviewed before selection to ensure a range of personalities, values, religions and backgrounds, they give each other social media and English lessons, lifts around town, and help with repairs. Feedback has been very positive.
The Chocolate Quarter, Keynsham, where intergenerational togetherness is promoted, and residents feel part of the action during the town’s 10K race. Photos courtesy of St Monica Trust
The trust imperative
Ethnographic researcher Martina Gnewski also used Sweden as a case study, looking at how social norms, values and expectations form in the home, neighbourhood and district, and how cultural practices can contribute to feelings of isolation.
She found trust integral to how the latter manifested in different “layers” of the city and how the everyday lived experience of loneliness – shaped by limitations in the physical environment – impacted people’s actions. Without trust, there was no belonging – the fundamental, coveted cornerstone formed through shared values, experiences and resource accessibility, rather than simple proximity to others.
“Trust often needs to be established in a person’s close surroundings before it can expand to wider society, so by encouraging individuals to develop closer social bonds with neighbours, their sense of trust in people can begin to grow,” says Martina, who suggests interactive features in shared spaces such as staircases help residents create trusted ties. Activating corridors and the ‘dead space’ of lobbies is key to healthy housing dynamics that are “essential” for cohesion, in the same way that designing blocks around internal courtyards ensures footfall in the same areas, so people naturally cross paths.
On the city scale, Martina advises redevelopers to remember that areas with strong identities and traditions are better equipped to prevent loneliness, and that architecture can facilitate social opportunity when the root causes of societal segregation are addressed and those excluded from urban spaces are clearly identified.
Accessibility is often skewed against marginalised minority communities who must make greater effort or travel further to establish the social ties that come easily or accidentally in areas where resources and amenities are prioritised. More level investment in city services and experiences would, she suggests, enable mobility patterns to evolve, as well as the nurturing of new connections outside of the immediate social circle.
The historical ties visible in the physical characteristics of older, familiar buildings can also contribute to residents’ identity and togetherness.
Martina Gnewski Ethnographic researcher
Bespoke, place-based approach
“Going forward,” ventures psychologist Dr Paul Hanna, “we need to fully engage with local residents when undertaking redevelopment projects to co-produce indoor and outdoor spaces that are relevant to them, facilitating community empowerment and identity, promoting social connection and belonging.”
As well as flexible design led and tested by diverse user needs and insights, to build trust, participation and that sense of permission, a bespoke place-based approach is crucial, with cut-and-paste solutions ineffective in the face of such a complex issue.
Some cities are considering ‘zero loneliness’ targets, using the template of initiatives that have aimed to end or at least drastically reduce road traffic accidents. The vision involves deploying underutilised public space, a transport network encouraging social interaction, and a rethink of town centres – especially given the shift in shopping and commuting habits – so that mixed-use spaces aren’t dominated by retail outfits and restaurants alone. According to these targets, community would be the number-one planning consideration, incorporating more spaces dedicated to health, education and government.
With first-hand memories of pandemic isolation still fresh in our minds, we all have a keener idea of the level of impact loneliness can have. We must use it to galvanise different kinds of decision-making and adopt a systems approach to designing for social change.
LET’S TALK
Age UK currently needs more volunteers for its Telephone Friendship Service – a safe, easy way of making a new friend that makes a big difference to an isolated older person. To register, visit: friendship.ageuk.org.uk