Towards human-centric planning: Older people's everyday life in neighbourhood spaces in Singapore's public housing

Abstract

Creating age-friendly environments to enable ageing-in-place has attracted tremendous attention since World Health Organisation launched the Global Age-friendly Cities Project. Learned from British new towns and the Neighbourhood Unit, Singapore's public housing is planned based on abstract planning models. It is acknowledged as a success story of high-rise living and influences housing development in China and other countries. Using Yuhua East neighbourhood as a study case, this article takes a bottom-up approach to examine whether Singapore's public housing, particularly its neighbourhood spaces (i.e., neighbourhood centre, precinct centre, park and green space, void deck, community and eldercare institution, and route), match older people’ spatial experiences and everyday needs. This article argues that abstract planning models and functionalist design approaches result in car-centric planning and space fragmentation. It highlights the necessity to practice human-centric design and plan neighbourhood spaces as parts of a highly cohesive urban space system rather than fragmented pieces.