This is coming at all due speed. The middle of the century looks like this pretty much all over the place. Towns will have to be redesigned around the chrome walkers.
by Mikiko Takasago
Two miles off coast of Mugi Port in the Tokushima Prefecture of southwest Japan is a small island called Teba, where all of the local inhabitants are aged 65 and over. A fishing village since the seventeenth century, the island reached a population of about 1000 in the early nineteenth century but has since declined to about 98 residents as people gradually moved back to the mainland in search of work. On Teba there are no cars or restaurants and the islanders occupy their time mainly with fishing, growing vegetables, chatting with neighbors and walking around the island. There is no industrial noise on Teba and one could say that time flows very slowly on the island. The elderly residents of the island say that they are happy with their life there, and recently, Teba has started to hold a certain appeal for people searching for an alternative to the hi-tech cities of the mainland. In fact, with an increasingly ageing population in Japan, it is tempting to imagine that every retired or elderly person in Japan could move to a tiny utopia like Teba, where everything they need is close at hand in their tight-nit community, far from the noise and anxiety of the city. However, when we look closer at the population problem in Japan, such a solution seems nearly impossible.
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Old Housing/Housing for the Old
The current problems of design start at home. As we know, most people over 65 begin to experience some form of physical impairment, and in a city like Tokyo, this becomes a major concern, especially when it comes to housing. Even though most of the housing in Tokyo was rebuilt after World War II, it still has certain traditional features that are difficult for the elderly such as steep staircases leading to houses and steps around each room. Since earthquakes often occur in Japan, many houses shift and warp over time, creating problems with traditional Japanese sliding doors. Many old people often leave their interior doors open because they fear they might get stuck inside if they try to close them. Even in these postwar houses, the furniture is designed for sitting close to the ground on tatami mats, which also requires people to bend their knees.4Japanese traditional carpet made from straw. This traditional style originated in the fifth century in Japan, when the life expectancy was about 40 years, which meant people usually died before losing their physical strength. By contemporary standards, such design details would violate most disability regulations.
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Urban Mobility
In addition to the materials and spaces of habitation, there are also major issues to consider at the urban scale. As we discussed earlier, many elderly people are now relying less on their extended family for basic assistance. For instance, Tokyo is famous for having a high number of convenience stores, and most people are able to find small shops within a five minute walk, but traditionally they are a place to buy fast food such as cup noodles or hamburgers or chicken nuggets. In other words, they are mainly for young people who do not cook for themselves. Now, many of these stores have started making and carrying products targeted to the elderly, who increasingly come to the convenience stores instead of cooking at home. The Lawson convenience store in the north of Tokyo stocks many nutritious, ready-to-eat foods that are easy to digest, like vegetable porridge and soups.7Financial Times. Age survey underlines pressures on Japan, ft.com/content/a8e6dd9e-254b-11e6-8ba3-cdd781d02d89 (2016, may, 29th). It is true that not all the elderly have digestion or chewing difficulty, and still many of them prefer to cook, however, these products give them new options, make it easier for them to eat, and reduce the household chores. When we compare taking a 15 minute walk to the supermarket once a week and cooking everyday, walking 5 minutes and getting prepared food sounds better if it has almost the same taste and nutrition value as the home-cooked meals.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes that could effect Japanese cities with an increasing elderly population is the infrastructure of public transport. The modern city is organized around commercial productivity, speed, and efficiency. An elderly city is a slower city. For example, the Metro in Tokyo has around 20 million passengers per day, which is double the annual ridership for a city like Berlin. The conditions are such that people try to avoid the metro entirely during rush hour. During the six years I lived in Tokyo, I only used the metro a few times during these hours because it is so uncomfortable. According to a report by the Tokyo Institute of Technology, occupancy rates inside rush hour trains are 250%, and the physical distance between each passenger is 1 inch. Only 20% of passengers can take a seat while everyone else stands or is even floated by the density of bodies, barely able to breathe.8Ramon, Brasser. Tokyo's rush hour by the numbers. elsi.jp/en/blog/2015/11/blog1126.html (2015, November).
When we think of the elderly, it would be a nightmare. If an old man aged around 70 years old tried to take the train for 15 minutes for three stops at 8am, the first difficulty would be the platform: although there are many escalators, most people run or step up very fast during rush hour, so the people who try to remain still on the escalator are pushed by others. Then, although the old man is able to reach the front of the train, passengers are required to move in and out of the car very fast, as the train stops for just one to two minutes. Even harder for him would be inside the train.(...)
These shifts in housing typology and program, urban planning and transport design sound like a huge inconvenience for cities designed around speed and able-bodied young people. However, this generational shift is coming no matter what, and it will be a turning point for architectural design and development in Japan. As Japanese society ages, the elderly will become the center of concern for health, politics, and design. As contemporary architecture searches for new ideas in façade design and construction, or in environmental performance, I believe that urban planning and housing design will also need to prioritize thinking about the slow, elderly bodies that are increasingly making up the urban population....
