Sustainable Transformation of Age-Friendly Community Centres Based on Transition Design

Abstract

The world’s population is ageing and countries are urgently seeking new solutions to ageing issues. According to Irwin (2015), Transition Design (TD) is a new design proposition for a rapidly changing society based on thinking about the concept of the “long-term” and the idea of global localism, placing the natural world in a more macro context, and advocating a more systematic approach to the transition to a more sustainable future for a design-led society. In the context of active ageing, this PhD research aims to explore how TD guides Design Research and Practice, taking the example of the sustainable transformation of age-friendly community centres (AFCC), from the vision of stakeholders, and the perspective of designers and policymakers, incorporating stakeholders, especially older people, into the design decision-making process, recognizing their entire lifestyle, and involving the infrastructure reimagination, including the products, services, environment, and social systems involved. Through wicked problem in AFCC, stakeholder relations, historical evolution of wicked problem, future visions, and designing system interventions, discussing the transitional design strategy and future trends for AFCC. The transition framework and design strategies for sustainable inclusive AFCC under TD core tenets will be addressed. This will enrich the theoretical and practical basis of TD and have significant implications for the sustainable development of ageing communities.