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Can cities grow old with us? Interview with Weiwei Design: Urban space needs a more age-inclusive imagination   We already live in an aging city, and we don't know it yet, and our city doesn't know it yet. As of July 2021, the elderly population over the age of 65 in Beijing has reached the 500,000 mark, accounting for 19.5% of the total population of Beijing. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of a super-aged society (Note 1), Beishi has already stepped out of the door of the super-aged society. Aged or super-aged society does not need to be viewed from a problematic perspective. We will all grow old. The real question is, can this city accompany us to grow old in a friendly way? In addition to the statistics, the reality we must see is the daily life of countless elderly people who are difficult to age in the city: blurred and indistinguishable street scenes, too short traffic lights, and shelves that cannot be touched by reaching out... Perhaps it was only at this time that we suddenly realized that we were living in a city that "couldn't get old". The Voice of Villages in Taipei invited Gong Wensha, the founder of "Wei Wei Design", who has long been concerned about the planning of age-friendly cities, to share with us his thoughts on age-friendly cities. In 2018, Weiwei collaborated with the Taipei Urban Renewal Office on the "UR Partner Urban Regeneration Partner Action Plan". The "One-Day Elderly Experience" event held in it required participants to use wheelchairs or wear clothes that could simulate the elderly Physical condition equipment, complete the assigned "daily" tasks, so that participants can use their own experience to understand the various issues that the elderly face in urban life; Gengchu, UniHub and other groups jointly plan the "Urban Attack - Co-creation of Friendly Street Design" event, to discuss and speak out on the issues of aging cities.   In this interview, we start from the city under the transformation of population structure, discuss the daily difficulties that the elderly in the city may encounter, and further think about how urban space may respond to the body and living conditions of the elderly, so that everyone Can live in an "old" city? "I don't want to live in a city like this" How would you imagine your old queen? Gong Wensha recalled the opportunity for her to devote herself to the issue of age-friendly cities. At first, there was no special reason, but a very simple idea: "I don't want to live in a city like this." How will you live in this city if one day your legs and feet have difficulty stepping up the steps, cannot see the dizzying menu of the restaurant, and even need assistive devices such as a wheelchair to move? After starting to delve into this topic, Gong Wensha also realized the urgency of promoting age-friendly cities from the actual population data. Taiwan's elderly population reached 14% in 2018, becoming an aging society defined by the World Health Organization. The peak population of post-war baby boomers will exceed 70 years old in 10 years, subverting the past urban planning dominated by young and middle-aged population imagine. Gong Wensha emphasized that before we start discussing age-friendly cities, we must first understand the physical condition of the elderly. It does not mean that as soon as the 65th birthday arrives, they will start to degenerate rapidly, have difficulty moving or forget things—the elderly do not It will not be that after the age of 65, the physical condition will degenerate immediately to the point that it must directly enter the medical system, but will gradually decline quickly or slowly in the following years. However, the elderly are still living with us in the city during this period of aging. At this time, the transition between the "independent life" and the "need for care" of the elderly is the city's age-friendly planning. entry point for assistance. In thinking about how to promote care support in age-friendly cities, in addition to providing more medical and nursing institutions, whether the infrastructure in the city can support the daily activities of the elderly in a more friendly way will be the key to the current Taiwan care system. "A la carte service" is the key to "comprehensive support". Talking about the aging city is to let everyone regain the autonomy of space Discussing advanced age is not to specialize the bodies of the elderly, but to think about how to construct a more inclusive urban system, so that individuals with different needs can share the dignity of living in the city. As Gong Wensha said: "I think "Barrier-free" is talking about to a certain extent, it is to give people the initiative they can have. I don't want to depend on others anymore. I hope that when I get old, I can still take care of myself. Myself... If it is the state of the body that causes the gap in people's life experience, the infrastructure in the city should have to make up for that gap." Of course, the increase of age will cause some changes to the body, making people's steps slow and vision no longer clear, but this should not mean that they cannot go out of the house and live in the city. Gong Wensha gave an example. In the future, there may be more and more demand for electric wheelchairs in cities. If coffee shops or convenience stores can provide charging services for electric wheelchairs, the cost and risk of going out for electric wheelchair users will be greatly reduced. Starting from the actual life experience of the demander, according to the life script of the demander, this example of rethinking how the various services of the city can be more inclusive, in Weiwei Design, Taipei Metropolitan City and Unihub and other teams There are more specific discussions in the co-authored handbook "Happy Aging Age-Friendly City Code-Decryption Raiders". (Extended reading: Happy Aging. Age-friendly city-decryption strategy ) The manual takes several main scenes of urban life as examples, and puts forward several suggestions for future planning: for example, it is recommended to add bottom lighting to sidewalks to make walking or wheelchair use safer; road signs can have clearer and easier to read Signs to enable people with visual impairment to read quickly; strengthen the voice broadcast system on the bus to reduce the panic of the elderly who are difficult to confirm their location on the bus; improve the aisle width and shelf height in markets and restaurants, etc. These individual changes seem to be details, but it is precisely these unappreciated details that reveal that the presupposed users of urban daily services still use freely moving people as templates, ignoring the different physical states of different people at different life moments , thus causing inconvenience to the elderly or other people in need in daily life. As mentioned in the handbook, change is within reach in the city, and it also reflects our imagination of elderly care. It should not only stay in institutions such as hospitals and nursing centers, but should be widely distributed Among the various industries and service spaces in the city, it includes daily catering, shopping places, and even gymnasiums or entertainment places. Gong Wensha gave an example, there is a KTV in Japan that specializes in business for the elderly. This KTV has made a very important change - the table in the store has become very heavy, so that when the elderly customers need to stand up with the table, the table is not easy to tilt, reducing the risk of the elderly falling down . While chatting, Gong Wensha also pointed to the sofa chair we were sitting on: "It is impossible for the elderly to sit on such a chair, because he is too short and the burden on the knees is different, so the Rizhao Center's Chairs are usually harder and lighter.” Another very interesting example is a gym in Japan. Gong Wensha mentioned that this gym has successfully attracted a large number of middle-aged and senior female members through conditions such as not accepting male members, not installing mirrors in the gym, and not requiring makeup. The impression that the gym belongs to the young group.  

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