In collaboration with Université de Montréal’s (UdeM) urban planning faculty, the CCA presents a screening of the documentary Where We Grow Older, conceived by Giovanna Borasi and directed by Daniel Schwartz in 2023). The film 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 in Barcelona—where the city is the caretaker— and the creation of a new architectural model in Baltimore 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.

Giovanna Borasi (Director and Chief Curator, CCA) will introduce the film and moderate a conversation after the screening about about questions of aging, care, and the spaces they require, particularly in the context of Québec.

With: Sébastien Lord (professor at UdeM), Jean-Pierre Chupin (professor at UdeM), Bechara Helal (professor at UdeM), and Rana Boubaker (PhD candidate at UdeM).

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Faculté d’aménagement de l’Université de Montréal, amphitheatre, room 3110
2940 Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montreal, QC, H3T 1P1

Rana Boubaker

Holder of a national diploma in architecture and a research master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Carthage, Rana Boubaker is currently pursuing a doctorate at the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Montreal (UdeM) on the adaptation of elderly people living in private seniors’ residences and the impact of the residential environment in the face of various changes and on the recreation of a new home. Among other functions, she also serves as project manager for active aging and family at Espace MUNI. Her areas of expertise include active aging, universal design, urban transformations, and the policy: Age-Friendly Municipality.

Jean-Pierre Chupin

Jean-Pierre Chupin is a full professor at the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions, and Mediations of Excellence (www.crc.umontreal.ca). A member of the Royal Society of Canada, he co-directs the interuniversity team of the Laboratory for the Study of Potential Architecture (L.E.A.P) founded in 2002. Since 2022, Chupin has also led a major SSHRC research partnership on Quality in the Built Environment in Canada: Roadmaps to Equity, Social Value, and Sustainability. This project brings together 70 researchers from 14 Canadian universities around more than 60 citizen and professional organizations at the municipal, provincial, and national levels. Chupin has also published works on analogical reasoning, project competitions, excellence awards, quality, judgment, and symbolic imagination.

Bechara Helal

Vice-Dean of Research and Scientific Life at the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Montreal and Associate Professor at the School of Architecture, Bechara Helal is a researcher at the Laboratory for the Study of Potential Architecture (LEAP) and an affiliated researcher at the Quebec Network for Research in Circular Economy (RQREC). He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering (Polytechnic School of Montreal) and a doctorate in architecture (University of Montreal) focusing on clarifying the emerging figure of the “architectural laboratory.” Helal is responsible for the construction courses in the School of Architecture programs, co-directs research initiatives on building adaptability funded by the Center for Intersectoral Studies and Research in Circular Economy (CERIEC). He also participates in the national research partnership on the quality of the built environment in Canada and has led the Tactical Laboratory for Inclusive Projects since 2023, where master’s students in the School of Architecture explore new ways to rethink the design of spaces for people with special needs.

Sébastien Lord

Sébastien Lord has a multidisciplinary background in urban planning, architecture, and land use planning. His thesis, which focuses on aging in the suburbs, received the Merit Award in Housing Studies from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. After four years at the Luxembourg Institute of Urban Research as a research officer, he joined the team at the School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture at the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Montreal in 2012. Since January 2019, he has been the director of the Ivanhoé Cambridge Observatory on Urban and Real Estate Development. His teaching and research focus on the relationships between daily mobility, residential choices, and lifestyles, as well as the impacts of sociodemographic changes, such as aging and immigration, on the evolution of territories, housing, and planning and housing policies.