U City is a highly mixed-use development with an emphasis on inclusion and diversity, integrating retail, accessible accommodation, retirement residences, aged care, and a range of social and health services in one greenfield site. The project reimagines traditional retirement and supported living through a vertical village model that prevents age segregation, encouraging civic participation and connection through a radically diverse range of functions.
U City is a 20-storey vertical village reimagining later living through an alternative housing model that fosters a dynamic and diverse residential community. Opened in 2019, it’s been referred to as “radically mixed-use” development for the number and diversity of its uses, services, amenities and tenants.
Client Uniting Communities – a non-profit organisation with an established history of caring for diverse communities – sought to consolidate its headquarters and community services with onsite retirement housing, respite and specialist disability services, while integrating spaces into the public realm. Located in the Adelaide city centre, the masterplan aims to socially connect residents and the wider community through an integrated masterplan that facilitates interaction, supports intergenerational connection, and invites public participation.
“Radically mixed-use”, U City combines retirement living, accessible accommodation and event spaces with commercial and community services.
A few years on, the project is an example of how architecture and urban design can support the dignity, wellbeing, purpose and independence of older people. Woods Bagot Principal and U City design leader Alex Hall says the central location challenges the well-worn formula of pushing older people out of urbanised areas to more isolated regions, instead creating a connective ground plane that supports inclusion and promotes engagement with local amenity.
“UC understood the potential of leaning into the services and amenity offered by the city,” says Hall. “The central location meant we could bring in all the traditional requirements of a retirement village into one greenfield site, without unnecessarily adding anything that already existed in the community, for example, a hairdresser or a bowling alley.”
Through the ground plane, the architects created new walkways, connecting to the surrounding Central Markets and Riverbank. A post-occupancy evaluation found these communal interfaces were key to fostering positive emotions and a sense of belonging among the diverse residents, workers and casual users.
Alex Hall, Woods Bagot Principal and design leader on U City
A core driver in the project was to create a range of high-quality spaces that everyone could use, regardless of ability, without creating spaces that felt overdesigned or institutional. “One of our key principals through the design process was ‘living first’,” says Hall. “That meant moving away from clinical environments and thinking about it first and foremost as a typical residential project.”
The ground plane incorporates a vibrant public art program, helping to create a sense of identity and belonging among the residents and reinforce a sense of place. Integrating salvaged materials from the former Maughan Church that previously occupied the site, the works communicate stories of the history of the U City site. Read more on U City’s public art program.
Through a warm material palette, welcoming architectural gestures and key community interfaces, the project engenders a sense of safety and wellbeing, with considerations for visibility, accessibility, and connectivity. “The mixed-use typology provided the ingredients to explore nuances in community-focused design that prioritise human interaction, support diverse needs and cultivate a sense of belonging and well-being,” says Hall.
Porous ground plane creates ‘opportunity spaces’ for interaction and connection. Image: Trevor Mein
U City is located in the heart of Adelaide’s CBD with connections to Central Market and Riverbank. Image: Trevor Mein
The development includes a flexible function centre associated with United Communities’ social services. Image: Trevor Mein
Codesign was a vital process through the conceptual phase, encouraging the active participation of older people in the design process. “This demographic can feel they are a valued part of their society when they can actively engage in neighbourhood planning and can participate in community activities,” says Hall. To engage residents, commercial tenants, UC services and other stakeholders in the process, the design team developed a “board game” to facilitate conversations among community and workshop the public realm.
“It enabled everyone to sit at the table at play around with the public realm, workshopping how to manage competing uses through a series of thresholds,” Hall continues. “It created a new, more engaging way of facilitating conversation, allowing people to voice their priorities, share their concerns and understand some of the technical and spatial constraints of the building.”
In a short space of time, the team was able to develop a deeper understanding of the people they were designing for – which user groups could be combined, and which needed their own space. It also had the added benefits for stakeholders as they developed a stronger sense of agency and ownership in the design and development process, and an appreciation of the other stakeholders’ needs.
The design team created an interactive board game for the stakeholder engagement process.
U City includes onsite facilities to mitigate the social isolation and loss of purpose of older adults. Uniting Communities’ unique philanthropic model provided the opportunity for residents to give back to their community, helping this demographic to retain a sense of purpose and contributory satisfaction. “When communities enable older adults to work, learn, participate, it promotes self-esteem, supports meaningful interactions, and improves overall wellbeing,” says Hall.
“For example, one of the residents is a retired doctor who accesses the onsite services, but also uses his professional skills and training to volunteer in UC’s youth services,” Hall continues. “It’s an avenue for him to be a part of that community and to utilise his knowledge and expertise for good. It’s social circularity that generates value and wellbeing.”
Homes have been thoughtfully designed to empower independence, embedded with a continuum of care model that incorporates inbuilt flexibility to respond and adapt to changes in a person’s circumstances, such as loss of mobility or vision deterioration. Ageing in place principles, liveable housing design guidelines, dementia enabling environment principles have all been included to support a diversity of needs, from adjustable bench heights, flush thresholds and wide turning circles for mobility aids, to intelligent lighting systems to support orientation and navigation.
Evidence-based resources include haptic or intuitive design – such as the use of colour, light, sound and views to assist with wayfinding – support an individual to remain independent and healthy for as long as possible. Integrated technology such as motion sensors can monitor a person’s health, understand patterns and activity, and notify help when assistance might be required
Specialist disability units feature adjustable bench heights, flush thresholds, wide turning circles, and other ageing in place considerations.
“Technology has been integrated into the residences to support independent living, with sensors in the specialist disability units that can detect falls or register changes in behaviour that might signal problems,” says Hall. “Smart home technology can trigger environmental changes that support safety, independence and comfort, like automatically illuminating a pathway when someone gets up in the night.”
As our cities age, it is increasingly important in mixed-use, community-centric spaces to design for a diversity of needs and abilities. U City offers an alternative housing model that is designed for social impact, creating an inclusive, diverse, dynamic place for a broad spectrum of users. Moving away from traditional care-based systems to a “living first” approach, this radical use of space for the retirement and specialist disability sectors is an example of how architecture can create a sense of belonging and community, supporting the safety, autonomy, connectedness, and health and wellbeing of our older people.
U City has been recognised for excellence in design, social impact and innovation with the 2021 Property Council of Australia Award for Best Mixed Use Development, the Good Design Award for Social Impact 2020, the 2021 South Australian Tourism Awards for Excellence in Accessible Tourism, and the UDIA (SA) Seniors Living 2020 award.
Adept at crossing between complex typologies and scale, Alex Hall is an architect currently practising across urban design, architecture, and interior design projects. Alex Hall presented U City at the Australian Health Design Council conference on 29 October 2025. For more information visit www.ucity.com.au
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