Environmental gerontologist Emi Kiyota talks about the dangerous implications of designing for the broad category of “elder care”, rather than connecting with an individual’s actual needs. Protecting our elders too much – “keeping them at home all the time, not letting them take risks” engenders dependency.

When people get accustomed to dependent relationships, it normalises the idea that the elderly need a specific separate environment. Without opportunities for connection, stigmas around age perpetuate.

Emi warns that excessive convenience and high technology usage might create social isolation “because you don’t need to socialise with anyone”.

As she was creating the Ibasho concept, a set of principles to guide community development that empowers the elderly, Emi often encountered elders who told her that they didn’t want to be mere receivers of help. “So we realised the best thing we could do was to create a space where they could come together to do something for other community members.”

Despite its location on the equatorial zone where 90% of all plant species are found, there is little incentive in Singapore for people to connect deeply with nature. Landscape architect Yun Hye Hwang muses on the hands-off relationship many on the tropical island have with nature, “Care is everywhere. As a nearly fully urbanised city state, the government has done much taking care. Tidy forms of nature persist... providing visitors and investors a clean and favourable impression of the country. There is barely even a single patch of the land whether turf or paved, laid bare.” Because the Singapore government’s landscape management covers so much ground, there is little need for the people to care for the city’s verdant and extensive greenery.

In recent years, the government has initiated community-led garden programmes to engage citizens in nurturing public spaces into common spaces. However, the State’s soft authoritarianism often pervades these programmes, stymying the civic activism that can grow from them. Place-keeping researchers emphasise the need for a participatory governance approach that balances autonomy and bureaucracy. Please scan QR code to read relevant studies.