And housing still treats it like one. On the gap between how later life actually unfolds and the categories the industry keeps building for.
And Housing Still Treats It Like One.
For most of my childhood, ageing had a clear destination.
I grew up in the south of the Netherlands in the early 1990s. My mother worked as a caregiver in a nursing home. And as a child, it felt normal to me that at a certain age, you simply moved there.
My great-grandfather lived in a nursing home. My grandparents did too.
There were caregivers. Scheduled activities. Shared dining rooms. That's how we did it. That's how ageing worked.
It wasn't emotional. It wasn't debated. It was a system, and it made sense at the time.
But that world no longer exists.
And yet, much of how we still design housing for older people assumes that it does.
Over the last decades, ageing quietly changed, without us fully redesigning the systems around it.
People live longer. They stay healthier for longer. They remain mentally sharp well into their seventies and eighties. They want autonomy, rhythm, identity and choice.
At the same time:
- care decentralised - institutional capacity reduced - family structures shifted - healthcare fragmented - inequality increased
So today, most older people remain at home, often by policy, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by choice.
But here's the friction:
"We removed the destination, without redesigning the journey."
This is the question we rarely ask out loud.
Is 65 old? Is 75 old? Is 85 old?
We know the answer is no, but we still design as if it were yes.
Today, "older people" includes:
- someone still running a company at 72 - someone living alone in a house that's far too big - someone with limited mobility but strong social life - someone financially struggling - someone in high-end senior living with full services
They share an age bracket. They do not share a life phase.
"Old age is no longer a single condition. It's a spectrum of phases."
And housing still treats it like one static state.
Across Europe, we see variations, but the same underlying tension.
In the Netherlands, ageing happens at home, supported by increasingly stretched systems. In Germany, institutional layers still exist, but they're under pressure. In Italy and Spain, family networks carry much of the load, until they can't anymore.
Different cultures. Different policies.
Same reality:
"The old model doesn't scale anymore."
When the system starts to fail, we respond with familiar solutions:
- senior apartments with added services - activity programs - communal dining - "age-friendly" labels - care attached to real estate
These are not wrong. But they are incomplete.
Because they all share the same assumption: that ageing is a fixed phase you design for, instead of a process you design with.
We keep designing housing for "old age". What we need are systems for ageing.
Ageing doesn't happen in a straight line.
Just like younger generations, older adults move through phases:
- active and outward-focused - reflective and selective - physically adaptive - support-seeking - care-intensive
These phases are not defined by age. They're defined by health, rhythm, autonomy, energy and identity.
And crucially:
"People don't want to be moved between phases. They want to transition."
Housing rarely supports that.
What often gets lost in conversations about ageing is not space, but meaning.
For many older people, the real friction isn't physical decline. It's the moment they stop feeling relevant.
Housing transitions often remove responsibility, rhythm and contribution in the name of safety and efficiency.
But ageing well isn't about being taken care of. It's about continuing to matter, on your own terms.
If living systems don't protect that, they quietly accelerate dependency instead of resilience.
In hospitality, wellness and service design, one thing is well understood: people experience life in sequences, rhythms and transitions.
Arrival matters. Pacing matters. Friction matters. The handover between phases matters most of all.
For years, experience architecture focused on designing systems that support people as they move, not as they stay.
What's striking is how relevant those principles have become for ageing.
Because the challenge of senior living is not space. It's "transition without disruption."
Housing still assumes:
- permanence instead of evolution - categories instead of phases - static solutions for dynamic lives
So older people either:
- stay too long in environments that no longer fit - or move too abruptly into environments that strip identity
Both outcomes create friction. Both increase dependency. Both reduce quality of life.
Not because people are "old". But because the system doesn't move with them.
The future of ageing isn't about better senior housing.
It's about:
- phase-responsive living environments - autonomy with optional support - transitions that feel intentional, not institutional - systems that adapt without erasing identity - housing that ages with people
The question is no longer: "Where do elderly people live?"
But: "How do we design living systems that can age with us?"
When I was a child, ageing had a place.
Today, ageing is a journey.
And we are still designing housing as if the destination never changed.
Old age isn't what it used to be. And housing must finally catch up: not by adding features, but by redesigning the system itself.
This thinking doesn't end with theory.
This Friday, we're dedicating our One Hour Build to exactly this challenge: designing an accessible, future-proof living concept where ageing is not treated as a single stage, but as a sequence of supported phases.
Not a care model. Not a luxury niche. But a living system that allows people to age with dignity, autonomy and meaning, without being forced into abrupt transitions.
Because if we want housing to remain relevant for the coming generations, we have to stop designing for "the elderly" and start designing systems that can age with us.
This article is part of my weekly Deep Dive series, exploring how experience design can transform the way we live, work, and belong.
I'm Jeroen, working at the intersection of experience design, real estate, and technology. Through research, strategy, and partnerships, I help developers, architects, and brands create places that don't just function, they feel.