'Reins Theory': Make sure you are at the right end!
Michael H Lindell
Architect, Melbourne VIC
PP: 297 - 301
Abstract
Reins are a pair of long straps, usually of leather used to control a horse. They are connected to the bridle at the bit and enable the rider to control pace and direction. A very similar mechanism is used by some to control small children. While the attachments differ, the principles remin the same.
Reins unambiguously have two ends: a 'control' end and a 'controlled' end. Many, quite superbly crafted rein and bridle systems have evolved to enhance the elegance of the device and the subtlety of communication between horse and rider. However, the essence of the system remains unchanged. No matter how refined, the reins remain a crucial part of a 'control mechanism'. Reins need not be made of leather and steel. Some of the most effective are woven of attitudes, expectation, and fears.
This is not a scientific paper. It is an article based on a suspicion, supported by very subjective experience and anecdotal evidence. It seems to me that people are categorised as 'older' are often precipitately moved to the 'controlled' end of the 'reins' system.
Article Text
Design is a 'problem solving process'. Too often architects and planners in their enthusiasm to arrive at a solution fail to establish a clear definition of 'the problem'. It is in this phase that the character of the challenge is identified for better, for worse. A flawed definition may result in accommodation which may be externally elegant but effectively a human warehouse. A brief must be structured around respect for the individual and accommodating to the certainty of change. Architects and planners must be imbued with this ethos lest they again become accomplices in some of the patronising planning of the past.
In former times architecture was a more predictable vocation. Society, technology, communications, and transportation changed slowly, if at all. Now change is pervasive, rapid, and global. Buildings now, all too often on completion, reflect thinking which is changed, if not obsolete. The challenge presented to architects and planners now is to create environments which have the capacity to 'remain responsive' to the dynamic communities which they serve.
What sort of 'place' have we made for older people? The notion of 'place' is an elusive one. I think David Canter at the University of Surrey came closest to defining it. He suggested it is the confluence of three elements, the physical setting, the introduced activities, and the conceptions held by those experiencing it. The physical setting in the modern city is certainly challenging for older people. The scale of the urban environment is often intimidating and disorientating. Navigation in and around such turbulent and dynamic settings is difficult and frightening. Most cities have been designed in a manner best suited to cars and buses and trams. People must 'fit in'. They must know the rules, they must conform or they won't keep up. This is not inclusive design.
Older people are particularly compromised in this creation of 'corporate' cities. The 'sanitising' of people out of the service interfaces, be they banking, transport, or retailing aggravates the alienation of the older person. I am not seeking to suggest it is all 'Kafka' landscape but in broad terms the urban fabric of most cities militates against the interests of older people.
The process of evolving urban structure must be reconsidered as the individual is re-established at the centre. The impact of such thinking will be reflected in the scale, animation, and familiarity of urban and rural communities. The rediscovery of the 'agora' or 'market place' is a response to the need to create social cohesion and vitality. Social interaction must be facilitated and vehicles relegated to the status of servers not dominators. In this realigning of priorities, walking must be respected. Surfaces, landscaping, street furniture, and orientation should be configured in such a way as to accommodate pedestrians, old and young. By offering individuals a spectrum of options, variety can be celebrated and predictability corroded.
A significant casualty in city living for older people is often identity. Too often, 'Florence of Deepdene' becomes 'the hysterectomy in 3B', 'tax file number 1.262.814.06', or 'seat 22C'. There is certainly a revisiting of personal attention in the attitudes of many institutions and corporations but the major characteristic of city hearts is indifference and anonymity. The pace and energy of the city makes personal interaction difficult, awkward, and vulnerable. Privacy is a problem in the city. An essential part of establishing an acceptable state of privacy is the capacity for the individual to regulate interaction with other people. Usually cities lack such social subtlety. Consequently, experiences in the city involve, paradoxically, 'isolation within crowds'.
Planners must resist the temptation to be too deterministic, recreating internal and external spaces. Individual appetites for social interaction vary with the day, the time, the season, and the chronological context. Adaptable spaces are more responsive to the inevitability of change. The permanence of a building's fabric can be layered in such a manner as to accommodate a variety of uses. Tailoring planning to the 'minutiae of the moment' can produce a brittle result. This pressing influence is becoming more imperative as the rate of change escalates.
Too often, cities in their insensitive form convert personal disabilities, either physical or mental, into handicaps. Designers in their obsession with the 'normality curve' isolate those at the margins. Environmental evolution must address a much broader position. While 'access' is being written in to regulatory constraints, it is at times creating the 'disabled' as a race apart. We still remain preoccupied with creating an 'us' and 'them' differentiation. An agenda for inclusion is apposite.
'Way finding' is evolving as a design influence. This is timely and must be made responsive to the capacities and interests of older people. As one's vision changes, range diminishes, and cognitive capacity shifts. One should not be compromised unreasonably by an unresponsive environment.
Pervasive demographic shifts are creating a new population of older, capable, and active individuals. Many compromising conditions associated with eyes, hips, and hearts are being better treated and thus the capacities of this emerging cohort will be very considerable. This group is unlikely to be tractable. Nostalgic notions of retirement, remote residential villages, and 'winding down', will not necessarily be picked up. Aspirations of this population must be allowed to reform urban fabric. Such people will have a potent combination of time, resources, attitude, and experience. In all probability they will be 'a bit' retired, 'a bit' working, 'a bit' travelling, and perhaps 'a bit' studying. The rules are changing, so must the city.
The other emerging population will be the 'old old'. This predominantly female group in their eighties and nineties will have physical and mental frailties deserving subtle care and respect. Again, the conditions must not take precedence over the identities. In gross terms the physical settings making up our cities compromise the capacities and cognitive skills of older people. These forces are currently part of the moving of such individuals into the 'controlled' zone, and thus at the wrong end of the reins.
In our enthusiasm for categorising people, we have created many insidious semantic ghettoes: the elderly, the infirm, the ethnic, the challenged, the retired, and the senile. Individuals do not fall into such a tidy and tyrannical discipline. Yet the activities pervading clearly seek to reinforce the 'tidiness' of our emerging language. Arbitrary ages are used to establish the qualifying for such bureaucratically defined 'clubs'. When do you go 'on the pension'? When do you retire? Have you got your Senior Citizen's Card yet? These forces gradually define and corral 'the oldies', and allow stereotyping to flourish. Appropriate times for such people to travel are established and special markers identify the population.
There is no question that many of these activities introduced for older people are well motivated. However, there is a great risk of homogenising the behaviours of this growing and vulnerable group, and corroding the skills and identities of very precious individuals. In the past, one of the expectations associated with ageing was the 'winding down' of activity, particularly physical and to some extent mental. The implication suggests one becomes more fragile with age. The community activities tended to reinforce this 'ebbing' ethos. Happily, such thinking is changing and much more rigorous activity and exercise programs are part of a new agenda for older people. City structure has yet to really respond to such shifts. Traditional attitudes are still enshrined in the spaces and administration of cities.
Travel and educational activities are being transformed by the appetites of older people. The combination of both is creating new industries, facilities, and activities. The trends are promising, but the inertia is substantial. Activities still remain unresponsive to the individual and are biased towards the 25 to 45 year population. I suspect it is likely that older people, tired of traditional type casting, will refuse to be relegated to the compliant status of the past. They will 'make their way, and their mark at times individually and at times in accord'. They will certainly not be accepting of the strictures so popular in social organisation. Perhaps a little 'chaos' theory would add some zest to the debate.
Ironically, the pervasive suburban lot has been a corrosive influence of the evolution of urban and suburban fabric. It certainly allowed the pristine residence to sit securely 'moated' by the front and back yards. While the family was growing, while mobility was easy, the package was pretty good. But, when the family leaves range diminishes, possibly a spouse dies or is hospitalised, and the residential recipe may then become quite inappropriate or even hostile.
The retirement village emerged as a response to the demand for new residential options. However, the appetite for inexpensive land often led to 'remote' settings which while apparently attractive were often unconnected and socially flawed. Newer 'connected community' options are emerging, allowing individuals to shift into settings responsive to their needs, yet within familiar suburbs within community networks and appropriate to their social and health needs.
Perhaps the major transformer of individual interactivity in the next decade will be the convergence of computing and communications, and the resulting digital dialogue. Older people with time and motivation will be major beneficiaries of this neural network, allowing individuals to be in touch, informed, involved, and in a familiar community. Such exchange will massively enhance the intergenerational links which have been carefully dismantled in recent decades. Sadly, we have ignored the symbiotic potential of the association of the old with the young. The link may be direct, it may be electronic.
An irony for architects and planners is the emergence of virtual structures and the need for these, with the more physical elements, to be part of a continuum of thinking. The supportive environment may well become more and more ephemeral. Thus, activities have the potential for making places for people more responsive but at present they too often reflect the patronising tidiness of the recent past. However, the distant past, particularly the medieval, does offer some very constructive social models for the reweaving of our damaged social fabric. If we were as sensitive to the functional requirements of people as we are to those of automobiles, a constructive start would be made.
The most elusive influence on the nature of place are the conceptions held by those present. Here we are subject to the inundation of attitudes, predispositions, and prejudices within the media, the schools, the courts, the parliament, and crucially the home. Conceptions concerning older people have fluctuated from the earlier 'elevation of the elders' to the present situation where this precious population has been trivialised, marginalised, and patronised to the point where expectations appear to be influencing, if not, determining behaviour. Such a self-fulfilling prophecy is an extremely dangerous and extravagant threat to achieving a sustainable future.
The ubiquitous electronic media thrive on stereotypical presentation of attitudes and characters. Older people at times are often seen as out-of-touch, dependent, incompetent, and demented. Older people do appear in a positive light but they are usually propped up with financial, political, academic, or artistic 'grunt'. The challenge is to respect the capacity and the character of the individual, to be sensitive to incapacity but not to be obsessed with it.
Generalisations, particularly pejorative, are best done at a distance. The closer one gets, the more one realises the strength of the individual transcends other descriptions. If this is so, children of all ages must be given the opportunity to develop, closely, with others of all ages, in settings formal and informal, so they can resist unreasonable characterisations. Conceptions pervade all facets of our lives. Even the premise of 'a pension' is underpinned by an implication of dependency. The fact that entitlement may commence at a certain date, linked to a certain age, is suggestive to say the least. The social motivation is commendable but we must consider the 'side effects' of such gestures. The cumulative effect of such is to accelerate the shift away from 'control' to 'controlled'.
My conclusion, in answer to the question 'what sort of place have we created for older people' is not good. The environmental 'press' is very corrosive to the identity, orientation, privacy, and social infrastructure of older people. There are some very promising trends but much remains to be done. We make our environments and we are in turn made by them. This cycle at present is militating against the individual, particularly the older individual. The essence of the change ethos must thus focus on respect for the individual, an emphasis on enhancing capacities, and the creation of inclusive communities.
If we accept ageing as not being a problem but a process, we can address in our evolution of a responsive urban structure, the consequences. Thoughtful design minimises the impact of disabilities and enhances capacities.
Pivotal to Reins Theory is self-determination. Ideally, we all, for as long as is reasonably possible, maintain control of our destinies. The social structuring of communities will be crucial to extending our autonomies. Here we move into the difficult territory of 'being protected from ourselves'. We are vulnerable at present in often having a precipice between residential and institutional options. The diffusion of networked care and support services into the home will change the rules and facilitate 'direction from the home' rather than 'from the hub'. Urban and social planners have the opportunity to explore options in the creation of new communities and in the transforming of the old. As neural infrastructure erodes the significance of distance, the nature of social adhesion is changing. The built environment must, to some extent, anticipate this shift or structures will be stranded like beached whales rigid and no longer relevant. Clearly, Reins Theory is a simplistic reading of some very complex and subtle interactions. However, I am convinced we must arrest the pressure driving older people into a marginalised state of irrelevance at the wrong end of the reins.
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