Edwina Bennett makes the case for designing health and caring environments to support difference, not uniformity.
Population ageing is accelerating more quickly than our built environment and institutional systems are adapting. By 2050, one in six people globally will be aged 65 or older1United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Ageing 2019: Highlights; Our World in Data, The global number of people aged 65 years and older is set to double within the next thirty years (2024). and, in Australia, this shift is accelerating. By 2040, the population aged over 75 is expected to grow by 64 per cent, adding more than 1.7 million Australians to this cohort2Australian Bureau of Statistics; Australian Institute of Health and Welfare population projections to 2040..
By 2050, one in six people globally will be aged 65 or older
On average, existing healthcare buildings, including hospitals, retirement villages, aged care and regional care facilities, were built around 40 years ago and reflect the care models and social assumptions of their time. While they have served multiple generations, many were designed for earlier approaches to care that are now largely retrospective.
The result is a growing misalignment between the way people live and age, and the environments designed to support them. We continue to design as if health and life unfold in neat, sequential stages, rather than acknowledging that multiple generations – with fundamentally different expectations of care – coexist at the same time.
With many health facilities currently operating at around 40 years of age, and many expected to continue functioning for decades beyond that, new healthcare environments must be designed for long-term relevance. This is not simply a question of flexibility over time, but of designing places capable of supporting multiple models of care simultaneously. Any health facility designed today must serve Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha at the same time, a universal system, but not a uniform one.
“The real risk is not an ageing population, but health environments that assume sameness, stability and linear change in a world defined by difference.”
Rethinking where care happens.
Designing for an ageing population is not only a health issue, but a housing and planning challenge. When care cannot be delivered within the community, pressure shifts to hospitals, where older people often remain long after they are medically ready to leave.
Across Australia, this failure is increasingly visible in hospital bed blocking. Around 2,500 to 3,000 older patients are medically fit for discharge at any given time but remain in public hospital beds due to a lack of appropriate aged care, housing or community based support, occupying close to one in ten hospital beds nationwide3Australian Medical Association, Hospital exit block: a symptom of a sick health system (2023); ABC News reporting on state and territory health ministers’ data on patients awaiting discharge to aged care (2025–2026); Duckett et al., The growth and drivers of Australian public hospital costs and prices (Create Health Advisory, 2025. This reduces hospital capacity and delays care for others, not because of clinical constraint but because the surrounding systems of housing, care and community are not designed to work together.
Too often, care and housing are planned for a single cohort and a narrow moment in life.
Yet, health systems operate in conditions of demographic overlap, where generations do not replace one another but accumulate. As long-life assets, caring environments must therefore be conceived as intergenerational ecosystems, environments that support fundamentally different relationships to health, care, autonomy and trust, at the same time.
A pluralist approach: Designing for difference.
Addressing this misalignment requires a serious shift in how aged care and retirement living environments are conceived and built. Rather than designing for a single moment, cohort or model of care, facilities must be designed to accommodate multiple facets of care at the same time. This pluralist approach requires care environments to be conceived as long term ecosystems capable of supporting overlapping generations, accelerating technology, evolving care models and different expectations of health at the same time, without assuming that a single setting or solution can meet every need equally.
For Gen X, health is pragmatic and this cohort is often time poor. Care environments must therefore be efficient, integrated and outcome oriented, responding to lives shaped by work and layered caring responsibilities. Often supporting both ageing parents and children, this generation requires health systems that operate as part of a broader ecosystem.
For Millennials, health is deeply connected to identity, values and lifestyle. Personalisation, choice and alignment with social and environmental values shape how care is accessed and trusted.
For Gen Z, mental health is central rather than secondary. Trust is built through transparency, cultural alignment and community, with strong expectations around inclusion and psychological safety.
For Gen Alpha, the first generation born entirely into an AI-enabled world, the relationship to health will be fundamentally reshaped. Technology will be embedded and assumed, but human, legible and emotionally intelligent environments will remain essential.
Beyond adaptation: designing multiple systems at once.
Health environments are often described as needing to adapt over time. But adaptation assumes a stable norm with incremental change at the edges. In reality, health systems today must operate as many systems at once, including workplaces, community hubs, homes, digital interfaces and places of care, respite and treatment, each approached and valued differently by different generations.
Health facilities that succeed are those capable of layering care within familiar, community-based settings, rather than separating treatment, living and support. Design decisions made early determine whether a building can support difference without displacement.
As Gen X moves into older age and with Millennials following, the question is no longer whether care can be delivered, but whether it can be integrated without requiring people to disconnect from their community, identity or sense of belonging. Supporting ageing in place becomes a measure not just of clinical success, but of social sustainability.
Designing the model of care.
Research consistently shows that people living in well designed, care integrated communities are more socially and physically active, experience lower rates of hospitalisation and report stronger wellbeing. These environments ease pressure on acute care not through intervention, but through everyday connection and support.
Designing health environments for multiple generations therefore demands a broader view of care. Successful places integrate higher-acuity services alongside spaces that foster independence, dignity and belonging, allowing care to scale and coexist rather than replace. Technology will continue to shape how care is delivered, but it cannot resolve questions of values, trust or humanity. These are spatial and organisational choices, set from the brief.
The ambition must be to put living first, to design health and care environments that are genuinely desirable places to be and capable of supporting many definitions of health at once. Preventative, restorative and community-focused models reduce reliance on traditional treatment spaces over time, not by removing them, but by situating them within richer ecosystems of care.
Clients, governments and designers must be ambitious. Designing for the generations ahead means moving beyond uniform solutions towards environments that can hold difference, universal in access, but plural in form, experience and meaning.
Edwina Bennett Principal, Global Health Sector Leader
Recognised for delivering complex health, residential, and community-focused social infrastructure projects, Edwina leads large multidisciplinary teams with clarity and empathy. She is committed to producing outcomes that genuinely improve people’s lives by aligning strategic intent with user-centred design, ensuring projects are both operationally effective and deeply responsive to the needs of users, staff, and communities.
Edwina has extensive global experience across the full project lifecycle, from business case development and masterplanning through to delivery, commissioning, and post-occupancy. Her rigorous, structured approach is grounded in robust briefing frameworks, while her work reflects a deep understanding of how health and wellness environments influence care delivery, staff wellbeing, and user experience.
A strong advocate for co-design and evidence-based practice, Edwina translates insights into functional, deliverable solutions that respond to client and stakeholder needs while anticipating future models of care. Her cross-sector approach is particularly valued in leading diverse stakeholder groups through complex decision-making processes during the design process with both empathy and precision, producing thoughtful and inclusive responses.
Edwina’s leadership is defined by her ability to bridge strategy and delivery. This ensures that projects not only meet performance requirements but crucially create well-designed environments that support wellbeing, healing, dignity, and connection.
Lee Lodge Insights and Communications Manager – Global
Lee is Woods Bagot’s Global Insights and Communications Manager. As Woods Bagot’s Global Insights and Communications Manager, Lee uses storytelling to decode often complex topics and abstract ideas, while ensuring our Insights are crisp, clear, and compelling. Working across the 7C Network, he helps our leaders and specialists share their expertise and how their thinking aligns with forward-thinking architecture and design. Check out Woods Bagot’s Insights for previous examples.
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