Written by:
Sophia de Sousa
Our first event in the 2025/26 WEdesign series, Multigenerational Places, was in Glasgow on 28 October at The Glasgow School of Art. This was another collaboration with Miranda Webster and Kirsty Lees, Stage 4 and 5 Leaders at the Mackintosh School of Architecture and a group of their students who co-facilitated the event.
Set within the context of the School’s City Forum event exploring the theme of Liveable Cities, our afternoon session invited members of the public into a gallery space lined with student work mapping the cities of Glasgow and Copenhagen. It was an evocative backdrop to an afternoon exploring the role our buildings, spaces, homes, neighbourhoods and high streets can play in connecting people across generations. We were delighted to bring together a truly multigenerational and diverse group of people to do this.
We set the scene for an active space for co-designing ideas. Each table was tasked with looking at the question through the lens of either buildings, spaces, homes, high streets or neighbourhoods, and then with developing a proposition or recommendation to pitch to the room. They were also tasked with creating a 3D model to illustrate their ideas.
Buildings
Our Buildings group started with their own experiences of the buildings they felt catered for different age groups and where different generations might go together and interact whilst there. They found themselves particularly focusing on buildings that might bring together elderly and/or disabled people together with children. They spoke of the generosity of spaces that are generationally neutral and that cater for all with empathy and dignity.
This led them to look at the peripheral spaces, quiet spaces and liminal spaces that help create both clear movement through the building and the individual spaces they lead to, whether they be intimate reflective spaces or more active spaces for interaction.
Their model challenged the architectural notion of a building as a cube, using circular imagery to soften the edges and enhance the generosity of space. They recommended that buildings should create more informal spaces for pause, interaction and conversation that are both generationally neutral and inclusive.
“Buildings should be in the service of interaction”
High Streets
The High Streets group created a model that deconstructed the linear high street, which people rush through, to create more lively, inhabitable spaces. They were interested in reducing the contrast between outside and inside and allowing the high street to spill out into connected spaces. The group talked about the different communities associated with any high street, those who see it as a destination, a route in their journey and as home for the many people who live there. They also thought more could be done to make them playful spaces. As one participant put it, high streets are used by people of all ages, and are “where the sandpit meets the walking stick“.
The group focused on an overarching theme of water and the value of “recharging points” where people could grab a cup of tea, refill their water bottles, use the toilet, and wash their hands. Sheltered walkways and places to rest were cited as essential to both their elderly and the very young.
Their key recommendation for multigenerational places was to soften the edges and to create shelter, points of rest and refreshment that are free and universally accessible.
“Recharging in the city without being charged.”
Neighbourhoods
The Neighbourhoods group began with identifying the places within communities where different generations meet, where relationships are built over time through regular use of them. This might be a community building or a local deli. They talked about the makeup of different neighbourhoods and how some of the new housing developments lack that social infrastructure.
This group also talked about neighbourhoods, our movement through them, the connections across them and the contrasts and barriers that might be created. They also focused on how we understand and navigate public and private spaces, as well as the role of accessibility. Participants referenced the social aspect of tenements in Glasgow and people’s perceptions of new developments creating gated communities, or new housing with high fences, making the incidental chat over the hedge impossible.
Their model highlighted the importance, within any neighbourhood, of the spaces where different generations naturally interact, through either formal or informal activities. It depicted the journeys through a neighbourhood and through public, private and semi-private spaces, crucial to creating the chance encounter. They recommended giving more power to people to organise local events, to create opportunities for interactions as crucial to multigenerational neighbourhoods.
“The central aspect of all of that is more power to the people.”
Homes
The Homes group looked at what people need both within their individual homes and within their wider housing environments. They shared examples of multigenerational housing that they knew of, including a co-housing initiative in Denmark in which older and younger people share skills and support each other. They also referenced a care home that offered housing for students in exchange for care given to the elderly people and teaching them new skills. This led them to consider the systemic bridges that can help support such exchanges whilst also keeping in mind the logistical aspects of creating safe, well-maintained spaces for interaction across generations.
They considered the growing needs of people to have workspaces within the home, but also the risk of this potentially creating isolation. Tackling isolation for all ages requires spaces for activities outside the home, whether indoors or outdoors destination spaces that bring people together.
Their model sought to illustrate that the design of new developments should take into account the needs of different types of people both within their individual homes and their shared spaces. They should help foster connection and exchange within their communities and across generations. They proposed that actively enabling such interactions and social impact in housing, and not creating barriers, should be supported by policy.
“People of all ages want to have the opportunity to play… That also helps with social interaction.”
Spaces
The Spaces group took a broad brush approach to the notion of spaces, and began by considering which types of spaces tended to attract people of different ages, such as parks, libraries or museums. They also noted that people operate on different timetables, and that this is often influenced by their stage in life, for example, whether attending school, university, working or retired.
Their model proposed that we should think of our neighbourhoods, towns and cities as “human libraries”, and that different types of spaces could help us tap into the stories, knowledge and skills that we all potentially have to offer each other. These could sit at the various natural intersections within a city.
Image credit: Emma Kane.
Their model represented their recommendation that where people come together around shared interests, that intentional opportunities or conditions should be created for people to share skills and learning.
“The Human Library makes connections across generations”
Key Themes
There were some golden threads across all the groups’ propositions and in the conversation that followed:
1. Creating space for serendipitous meetings
Whether within buildings, open spaces or moving through the city, we should be creating softer edges and boundaries, liminal spaces where people can both linger and interact with each other and the environment around them.
2. The benefits of reciprocal exchange across generations
All felt that the design and management of our buildings, spaces, homes and neighbourhoods can play a key role in enabling us to share learning, offer mutual support or simply create new friendships and social networks. Similarly, design and development can put damaging barriers to such interactions in place.
3. Empathy and dignity should underlie not only how we interact across generations, but also how we design our places and spaces.
An understanding of the different needs across the stages of life is crucial, as is a better understanding of the wants and needs we all share. Creating the conditions for empathy and dignity underlies that reciprocal exchange.
A huge thanks goes to Kirsty and Miranda, to their students and to all those who joined the event and the conversation. A shout out also goes to GSA student Emma Kane for her photography which has helped illustrate this blog. We are delighted that our WEdesign event could offer such a space for intergenerational exchange, and that several new connections and collaborations between those present have already emerged.