design Archives • GROUPN

THINK_Lifestyle

Where to start to make your venue the next ‘hot-spot’

By Becci Finn

The journey to making your venue the next ‘hot-spot’ can be long and arduous. We’re often asked… “where do we start?” Our response is usually to recommend hitting the road and doing a venue tour to see what others are doing well to create a frame of reference. Venue or research tours can range in…

Rethinking Retirement – Designing for the Third Age

By Marc Nicholas Our ability to live longer than in any other time in history is fuelling a re-think in the design and construction of architecture for aging. Those aged over 55, a period now known as the Third Age, have higher expectations than previous generations in terms of innovative design and features in senior…

Connectivity and Flexibility in Retirement – the Rise of the Vertical Village

Connectivity and flexibility have historically had little to do with retirement living, but vertical villages are slowly changing this model. The emerging niche – medium or high rise apartment buildings specifically designed for urban retirees – is fast rising within the $28 million aged care sector, and we’re starting to see developments appear by major…

Family Friendly Dining – Restaurant Design for the Cool Kids

Nothing brings more joy to any family than shared fun filled and exciting experiences. No matter whether it’s primarily for the benefit of the children or the family as a unit, it’s the shared lifestyle experience and joint participation that counts, that brings growth and happiness. Contemporary families have expectations of restaurants and hospitality providers…

Hospitality & the Booming Baby Boomers

“What you are is where you were….when you were being value programmed” was a video that accompanied Dr. Morris Massey’s book ‘The People Puzzle’ published in 1979. It identified generations according to age and ‘Baby Boomers’ became the phrase to identify children now middle aged. The life values of this post-war group are quite specific:…

How Multi-generational Housing is Changing the Ideal of the Great Australian Dream

How can designers of the next generation of housing meet competing and changing needs? Australians have long been emphatic about each generation acquiring a ‘home of our own’. Parents remained in the family home as long as they are able and children leave to study, travel, work, and finally to have a family and get…

Adaptable Learning Spaces

Adaptable spaces are surely necessary for the variety of forms that these encounters manifest in. Contemporary humans change careers with consummate ease, which brings to the fore the challenge of designing spaces which promote lateral thinking and instil in children a conviction of unhindered potential. A child whose surroundings engender an association of learning with…

The Architecture of Catholic Sacred Space: Telos

Reflecting on the manner in which we procure architectural projects and the associated finished product reveals a dichotomy between the abstract and the practical. That is, the conceptual thought that through development becomes the built reality. In many respects this process, and more particularly the basis of first principle design theory, reminds me of a…

Design for Holistic Learning

Over the past few decades, the experience of childhood in Australia and elsewhere has been drastically reshaped by technology. The information age has reset the terms by which children learn, play, relate and communicate, whether it be institutionally or otherwise: more than anything else, the internet remains the greatest influence on modern education. Very soon,…

The Homes of Retiring Baby Boomers

There are more opportunities than ever to embrace the growing market that is Seniors Housing, and even more opportunities as Architects to respond to the new generation of Baby Boomers who are moving into retirement living. The current thinking about Seniors Living is to provide the opportunity to “Age in Place”. Although there will always…

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