“A neighbourhood of necessity”: creating home and neighbourhood within subsidised aged housing in Durban, South Africa

Abstract

Home and neighbourhood, two deeply personal forms of place attachment, are created through the agency of an individual and community to transform space to reflect their needs and personality. Drawing on extensive qualitative, participatory fieldwork in Durban, South Africa, the purpose of this article is to explore how individuals living within state-subsidised aged housing transform the built environment through everyday living practices and ways of belonging, and in turn, how the design of the built environment within the building shapes resident’s sense of home, belonging and neighbourhood. Specifically, it responds to a lack of literature on how aged residents read, react, and interact with the built environment in these spaces, particularly within Global South or African contexts. Findings suggests that due to the built environment, residents have had little scope to create home, and instead feel disconnected from their living space, while also hindering the formation of a sense of neighbourhood. As a result, many residents are poorly adjusted to their new lives, which has resulted in a number of unintended social consequences, including loneliness and depression, leading to conflict, stress, and in some cases, death. Recommendations stress the importance of design features which allow for continuity from old life to new, the development of functional and attractive social spaces, and co-creative design processes for future buildings.