Significance of age-friendly co-design from a multi-stakeholder collaboration in Greenland

• Main Authors: Carroll, Sidse, Nørtoft, Kamilla
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: DRS Digital Library 2022
• Subjects: age-friendly communities; codesign; Greenland; multi-stakeholder; Art and Design; greenlandic
• Online Access: https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2022/researchpapers/156; https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2954&context=drs-conference-papers

The world’s population is ageing, and there is increased attention on developing well-functioning age-friendly cities and communities. This requires addressing topics with complex socio-spatial dimensions and involving multiple stakeholders in the process. This also means including older people as active partners in the design process to create environments that reflect their needs and aspirations. In this paper, we present a study, where multiple stakeholders from a Greenlandic city worked together to co-design new neighbourhood spaces in a senior housing area. Approximately 50 older people were involved in the co-design process, and follow-up interviews were conducted with municipal stakeholders two months later. By focusing on the different stakeholder perspectives, we extracted insights into the significance of age-friendly co-design in such processes. Our findings suggest that age-friendly co-design contributed to crossing boundaries through the establishment of a shared language, and to revising perceptions of older people’s capabilities. These findings can benefit local communities, but also the greater ageing society when developing future age-friendly cities and communities.