- Systemic changes
In year 2030 there will be 25% of population in Slovenia older than 65 years and 14% of population younger than 15. Impacts on the labour, national productivity and social security will affect the way we live and the places we inhabit. Slovenia is small and many people live in rural areas. But getting old in rural places can be even more isolating and burden of a big family house much heavier than owning an apartment in the city. Financing health, pensions, schools and housing based on contributions from labour income will become unsustainable when dependency factor grows. If we add the precarious work and growing numbers of dementia our picture gets even more blurred. Should we design places for people with impaired cognitive functioning? For active people with new needs in everyday life? For old precarious workers living like students? YOUNG OLDIES will start a research about growing old in Slovenia and search for new spatial possibilities for future third generations – us!
Older people don`t want to move from their long-life homes. Even if these are too big and hard to maintain. One big room where family can gather and a lot of storage space are essential.
Neurologist Zvezdan Pirtošek in an interview Fear that the body survived the brain for Delo of 20 September 2018: “... Chronic stress is fatal for the brain, as it physically destroys the cells of the memory center and increases the risk of dementia. A smart society should protect the brain.”
Single family house with garden is still a big dream. Capitalism is reducing square meters and shaping our needs and desires.
What we really need is an alternative typology in-between single family house and sheltered housing/retirement home.
