Where We Grow Older

Where will you live once you grow older? Will your city take care of you? How to design for the elderly, and for their caregivers?

Our latest documentary Where We Grow Older (2023, 30 minutes) looks at how the growing aging population is reshaping architectural and social constructs and questions the role of urban design and politics in facing these challenges. The film investigates two models of how care and housing can be reconceived in light of prolonged lives: public housing as part of municipal policies and infrastructure—where the city is the caretaker—and the creation of a new architectural model that offers care in a single building managed by private entities not only to the elderly but also to their caretakers—where the building becomes the city.  

The film takes us to the Ali Bei housing project by Paul Vidal, Arquitectura Produccions, and Vivas Arquitectos, in the centre of Barcelona, conceived as part of the city’s social housing program and positioning the elderly as active community members; and to Carehaus in Baltimore, by Rafi Segal Architecture and Urbanism with collaborating artist Marisa Morán Jahn, and developer Ernst Valery, the first intergenerational care-based co-housing project in the United States, which uses space as a catalyst for the development of care-based communities by bringing together caretakers and caregivers. While the cities and the political and economic contexts differ, the two projects present the same desire to address demographic aging in a spatial and unsegregated way.  

Where We Grow Older concludes the three-part short documentary film series and investigation, conceived by CCA Director Giovanna Borasi, directed by Daniel Schwartz, and produced by the CCA, to examine the ways in which changing societies, new economic pressures, and increasing population density are affecting the homes of various communities. Through the lens of architectural projects, each episode looks at the global scope as well as the local specificities of challenges to urban society and its spatial configuration, informed by changes in lifestyles and demographics. While the first film What It Takes to Make a Home (2019, 29 minutes) addresses homelessness, the second film When We Live Alone (2020, 27 minutes) examines the ways in which people live alone.  

The CCA has been invited as the guest institution of this year’s Arquiteturas Film Festival (AFF), titled Where Life Happens and directed by Paulo Moreira, taking place in Porto from June 27 to July 1, 2023. On this occasion we will present the series, accompanied by conversations, a screening session with rare finds from our collection, and an installation with a selection of recent documentary films as tools in our curatorial work. 

World Premiere of Where We Grow Older, June 27, 7:15pm, at Batalha Centro de Cinema 
A Q&A with Daniel Schwartz and Giovanna Borasi, who will be joined by Paulo Moreira, follows the screening. A screening of the first two films in the series, What It Takes to Make a Home and When We Live Alone precede the World Premiere.   

Further events by the CCA as part of the AFF’s Guest Institution Program include:   

Films as Curatorial Tools at the CCA, June 27–July 27, at INSTITUTO 
The CCA presents an installation with a selection of recent documentary films as tools in the institution’s curatorial work, including:  Now, Please Think About Yesterday (CCA, 2019, 22 minutes), a film conceived by Francesco Garutti, directed by Erin Weisgerber, as part of the exhibition and publication project Our Happy Life (2019);  Misleading Innocence: Tracing What a Bridge Can Do (CCA, 2014, 49 minutes), a film conceived by Francesco Garutti and directed by Shahab Mihandoust; Islands and Villages (CCA, 2017-2018, 68 minutes) is a documentary series in five episodes on the posturban phenomenon in rural Japan, conceived by Kayoko Ota and directed by Mile Nagaola and Tom Vincent (creative direction) as part of the CCA c/o Tokyo program, featuring Toyo Ito, Atelier Bow-Wow, dot architects, Hajime Ishikawa, and Kazuyo Sejima; Untitled (The Things Around Us) (CCA, 2020, 30 minutes) a video-essay conceived by Francesco Garutti and Irene Chin, and edited by Jesse Riviere, as part of the exhibition and publication project The Things Around Us: 51N4E and Rural Urban Framework (2021); and Models Talk (CCA, 2021, 29 minutes), a documentary series conceived by Kayoko Ota and directed by Studio Gross as part of the CCA c/o Tokyo program, featuring Kazuko Akamatsu, Kumiko Inui, and Erika Nakagawa.  On June 28 and 29, the installation will be activated by a series of conversations, as a way to challenge or contextualize the CCA’s concerns.   

Rare finds from the CCA collection, June 28, 9:15pm, at Batalha Centro de Cinema 
As a repository of ideas, provocations, inspirations, and trials and errors, the CCA collection documents the culture and production of architecture. Made up of both archival holdings and the output of curatorial and editorial activities, it also includes films. This screening presents a selection of films from the CCA collection, including Film for House IV (Falls Village, Connecticut, Peter Eisenman, 1973, 3min42 sec); High Court Portico (Chandigarh, India, Takashi Homma, 2013, 7 minutes); Forth-Bridge-Cinema Metric Space (Dieter Appelt, 2003-2004, 3min34 sec); and Conical Intersect (Gordon Matta-Clark, 1975, 41 minutes). The screening session will be followed by Q&A with Giovanna Borasi, who is joined by curator, writer, and film programmer Justin Jaeckle.  

Conversations around film and publishing in architecture, June 29, 7:15pm, at Circo de Ideias, with Pedro Baia, Magda Seifert (Circo de Ideias), Francisco Ferreira (Revista JACK) and Giovanna Borasi. 

For more, and to find out about our recent film projects, visit our website and sign up to get news from us.