Aging and the Meaning of Home

Continuing to live in one’s own home is a nearly universal goal of people over age sixty-five. The reality, however, is that the majority of aging people will eventually need a level of help that is impractical without relocation to a senior living community.

A critical component of designing these communities is not only accessibility and efficient care delivery, but also the intentional recreation of home for the residents. Providing for the physical needs of aging individuals is only part of the job of these buildings; seniors’ social, emotional, and intellectual well-being is equally important.

Hord Coplan Macht (HCM) works in architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture to consider the impact of aging on design and how design can impact aging. The firm is a leader in the effort to create holistic environments that become a true home for their residents.

Housing older people in need of care is a significant task, especially as this population is growing much faster than the overall population. Improvements in life expectancy coupled with a slowing birthrate have resulted in unprecedented increases in the number of people over age sixty-five.

In 1950, people over age sixty-five constituted 7.5 percent of the total population of the United States, growing to 10.4 percent in 1975. In 2024, the percentage is 17 percent, and the share of the population over sixty-five is projected to increase to between 21 and 25 percent by 2050, depending on immigration.[1]

An aging global population is a medical, social, and demographic challenge worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines healthy aging as the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age. Functional ability allows older adults to continue to do the things they value with dignity.

The design concepts HCM has developed to optimize seniors’ living conditions are closely aligned with WHO’s view on healthy aging. WHO’s view is based on universality and characterized by diversity and equity. Universality respects the mental, social, and physical capabilities and capacities that vary from person to person. Great care is taken to ensure that historical societal inequities do not constrain the potential of residents to age well.

Notes:

[1] “Chapter 4. Population Change in the U.S. and the World from 1950 to 2050,” Pew Research Center, January 30, 2014, https://www. pewresearch.org/global/2014/01/30/chapter-4- population-change-in-the-u-s-and-the-world-from-1950-to-2050/.

Excerpt from  Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century, (Cooper Hewitt |  The MIT Press, 2025) published in companion with  Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial  (New York, Nov. 2024-Aug. 2025)