The recently concluded World Urban Forum 2018 (WUF) explored what the future of cities meant and the different facets of urbanization. This year’s WUF emphasised the importance of community participation and promoted the deployment of co-design and participatory design as a bottom-up approach.
One of the stakeholders roundtable was on older adults, and the urgency of mainstreaming issues pertaining to aging into every aspect of urbanization. While this highlighted the ageing ‘crisis’ we will soon face, the roundtable was also about getting various stakeholders together to rise above the crisis.
In light of this the first ImaginAging workshop will pilot test the development of a participatory speculative design methodology.
Set in the urbanised part of Klang Valley, in Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, the workshop (22nd February) will invite a team of senior citizens to explore in creative ways their past and present experiences. The workshop will employ a combination of open-ended activities to reflect and review their past and present experiences before moving on to other tasks e.g. role play to encourage generative and reflexive thinking.
The Imaginaging group (a research collaboration between Sunway University and Lancaster University) was formed in November 2017 to tackle issues on ageing in place and in the cityby employing speculative design as a qualitative research methodology for studying the relationship between social isolation and mental health for older adults living in Malaysia.
Emmanuel Tsekleves