Designing for Intergenerational Living: A Place for All Ages
By Holly Sissons, Associate Director at Corstorphine & Wright (www.corstorphine-wright.com)
Intergenerational living isn’t new, it’s how communities have functioned for centuries. Families once lived with grandparents, children, and extended relatives under one roof or within walking distance. But in today’s age-segregated society that kind of proximity and shared experience is increasingly rare. We’ve built lives around separation, and the consequences are showing. Loneliness, social fragmentation, and misunderstanding between age groups are major issues we are facing.
Designing for intergenerational living offers a compelling response. It is about creating homes, neighbourhoods, and care environments where people of different ages can live not just side by side, but with meaningful opportunities to interact, support, and learn from each other.
The case for intergenerational design is rooted in mutual benefit. For older adults, daily contact with younger people can reduce isolation, boost mental wellbeing, and slow cognitive decline. For children and young adults, exposure to older generations builds empathy, reduces prejudice, and supports emotional development. At a time when both young and old are disproportionately affected by mental health challenges, the value of everyday social contact cannot be overstated.
Yet current housing models often entrench separation. Student housing, retirement developments, and single-use residential schemes often cater to narrow life stages and can isolate their residents from the wider community. While these models serve important practical functions (such as affordability, or specialist care, for example) they can reinforce loneliness and limit spontaneous social exchange.
In contrast, intergenerational schemes foster the kind of informal support systems that make communities resilient: a teenager teaching a grandparent how to use a smartphone, a retired neighbour watching children after school, or different generations tending a shared garden. These exchanges are small, but their impact is large.
Interest in intergenerational living is growing, particularly in the care and senior living sectors. There’s an increasing desire to shift from institutional models to community-based ones where older adults are visible, active members of the neighbourhood, not hidden behind fences or walls.
This shift is also visible in planning and development. Sites close to schools, nurseries, and community infrastructure are now being prioritised for housing aimed at older people. Developers are exploring tenure-blind models, where housing types are mixed and amenities are shared, such as cafés, fitness spaces, and communal lounges accessible to all, regardless of age or life stage.
The design response has become more ambitious. High-density, mixed-use urban sites now offer opportunities to layer different forms of housing such as general needs, co-living, senior living, and student accommodation, within a single neighbourhood. These integrated models can accommodate evolving needs, family structures, and care responsibilities over time.
Challenges and misconceptions
Despite growing interest, intergenerational living faces some persistent challenges. A common misconception is that older adults won’t want regular contact with younger people, or vice versa. But in reality, most residents want the choice. Good design should provide that choice, offering a mix of private, semi-private, and shared spaces. Think of quiet garden areas, flexible lounges, or outward-facing front doors that encourage neighbourly interaction without obliging it.
Another barrier is the perception that senior housing isn’t suitable for younger people. Yet the very features that make such environments accessible and safe can make them ideal for families, children, or young adults with specific needs. The key is to challenge stigma and replace institutional aesthetics with welcoming, inclusive design.
Infection control, understandably heightened by the pandemic, also needs to be addressed. But with considered zoning, good ventilation, modular guest spaces, and outdoor-focused activity areas, health concerns can be managed without cutting off social connection.
A further challenge lies in planning and regulation. Age-limited schemes can unintentionally exclude younger family members, carers, or visitors. More flexible classifications and tenure options (such as larger units with shared facilities or multigenerational homes with annexes) would unlock greater potential for age-inclusive communities.
Some of the most effective intergenerational design emerges not from top-down briefs but from local needs. Community-led housing, neighbourhood planning, and co-design initiatives often highlight the importance of shared spaces, adaptability, and interdependence. These voices can and should shape how we design for ageing and youth alike.
Design precedents elsewhere point the way forward. For example, in some new communities, homes have been designed with independent annexes that flex to suit changing household dynamics, whether that’s a teenager moving back home, a grandparent needing nearby support, or a home-based carer. By planning for adaptability from the start, such schemes accommodate life as it happens.
What’s next?
To make intergenerational living a standard, not an exception, we need strategic alignment. That means updating planning policy to encourage age-inclusive design – setting clear targets for accessible housing, funding home adaptations, and embedding intergenerational principles in local plans.
It also means reshaping the narrative around ageing. Rather than seeing older adults as recipients of care, we should recognise their role as mentors, caregivers, and contributors. Intergenerational living reflects this shift, not as a burden-sharing model, but as one of mutual enrichment.
And finally, we need to build homes that reflect how people actually live. The traditional nuclear family is no longer the norm. Many households today are blended, extended, or otherwise non-standard. Designing homes and neighbourhoods with flexibility at their core will serve everyone, regardless of their age.
At its heart, designing for intergenerational living is about dignity, connection, and sustainability. It’s about places that evolve with people and bring generations together, not apart. In a time of increasing social isolation and division, this approach offers something rare and essential: a blueprint for belonging at every stage of life.
