Where will you live once you grow older? Will your city take care of you? How to design for the elderly, and for those who care for them?

The documentary Where We Grow Older (CCA, 2023, 30 min) looks at how the growing aging population is reshaping architectural and social constructs and questions the role of urban design and politics in facing these challenges. The film investigates two models of how care and housing can be reconceived in light of prolonged lives: public housing as part of municipal policies and infrastructure—where the city is the caretaker—and the creation of a new architectural model that offers care in a single building managed by private entities not only to the elderly but also to their caretakers—where the building becomes the city.

The film takes us to Alí Bei, a housing project by Pau Vidal, Arquitectura Produccions and Vivas Arquitectos, located in the centre of Barcelona and conceived as part of the city’s social housing program, it positions the elderly as active community members; and to Carehaus in Baltimore, the first intergenerational care-based co-housing project in the United States by architect and urbanist Rafi Segal, artist Marisa Morán Jahn and developer Ernst Valery, which uses space as a catalyst for the development of care-based communities by bringing together caretakers and caregivers. While the cities and the political and economic contexts differ, the two projects present the same desire to address demographic ageing in a spatial and unsegregated way.

Where We Grow Older concludes a three-part short documentary film series and investigation, conceived by CCA Director Giovanna Borasi, directed by Daniel Schwartz, and produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, to examine the ways in which changing societies, new economic pressures, and increasing population density are affecting the homes of various communities. Through the lens of architectural projects, each episode looks at the global scope as well as the local specificities of challenges to urban society and its spatial configuration, informed by changes in lifestyles and demographics. While the first film  What It Takes to Make a Home (CCA, 2019, 29 min) addressed homelessness, and was presented as part of the 58th Session of the Commission for Social Development at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in February 2020, the second film  When We Live Alone (CCA, 2020, 27 min) examines the ways in which people live alone.

2023 | 30 min
Canada
Digital film
Third film of a three-part documentary series

Conceived by Giovanna Borasi
Directed by Daniel Schwartz

This film received the generous support of a private donor

Produced by the CCA

The film premiered in June 2023 at the Arquiteturas Film Festival de Porto, and is travelling festivals worldwide since.

Screenings:
• Festival Uma Revolução Assim (A Revolution Like This), Lisbon, Portugal (27 September 2024)
• Architecture & Design Film Festival, New York, United States (26-28 September 2024)
• Festival International du Film sur l’Art, Montréal, Canada (16 March 2024)
• Budapest Architecture Film Festival, Budapest, Hungary (8 March 2024)
• Milano Design Film Festival, Milano, Italy (7 March 2024)
• Miradas a través del tiempo, Montevideo, Uruguay (23-26 November 2023)
• The Emotional Power of Space, Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio, Accademia di architettura, Università della Svizzera italiana, Mendrisio, Switzerland (30 November 2023)
• Arquiteturas Film Festival, World Premiere, Porto, Portugal ( June 2023)
• Archfest - Norwegian International Film Festival, Haugesund, Norway (August 2023)
• St. Moritz Art Film Festival “Becoming Landscape”, St. Moritz, Switzerland (August 2023)
• Architecture and Care, ETH Zürich, Switzerland (September 2023)
• Fotograf Festival: Solitude In The City, Center for Architecture and Urban Planning Prague, Czech Republic (October 2023)
• Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam,The Netherlands (6 October 2023) 
• Istanbul International Architecture and Urban Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey (October 2023)
• Bergen International Film Festival, Bergen, Norway (October 2023)