Hollwich Matthias - New aging: live smarter now to live better forever

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Copyright 2016 by Matthias Hollwich and Bruce Mau Design US LLC

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eBook ISBN 9780698196445

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hollwich, Matthias, author. | Krichels, Jennifer, author.

Title: New aging : live smarter now to live better forever / Matthias Hollwich, Jennifer Krichels.

Description: New York : Penguin Books, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015048425 | ISBN 9780143128106 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Older people. | Older peopleHealth and hygiene. | Older peopleDwellings. | Aging. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Aging. | PSYCHOLOGY / Developmental / Adulthood & Aging. | HOUSE & HOME / Design & Construction.

Classification: LCC HQ1061 .H567 2016 | DDC 305.26dc23

Designed by Bruce Mau Design

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Version_1

Author:

Matthias Hollwich with Jennifer Krichels

Design:

Bruce Mau Design | brucemaudesign.com

Hunter Tura, Tom Keogh, Cristian Ordez, Elvira Barriga, and Kaila Jacques

Illustration:

Robert Samuel Hanson

Dedication This book is in honor of Barbara and Walter Hollwich, and my grandmothers, Omi, Mausi, and grandaunt, Uschi. Thank you to the University of Pennsylvania for the opportunity to teach your students about aging and architecture, and to Robert Kasirer for the opportunity to work on BOOM, an retirement empowerment community. Thank you Marc Kushner for being the best business partner in the world. Thank you James Roebuck for putting up with me coming home late and writing throughout weekends.

FOREWORD

Why New Aging

When I turned forty, I realized that, according to current statistics, I had lived about half of my life. Curious about my future, I started researching aging. I was interested to learn what society and architecture have to offer to make sure the next half of my life is fulfilled and happy.

I didnt like what I was seeing.

Starting with research and design at the University of Pennsylvania and my architectural office, Hollwich Kushner Architecture (HWKN), I tasked students, faculty, architects, and researchers to come up with new and progressive ideas that could make aging a fulfilling process. The results were amazing: a retirement community could become an empowerment environment, a nursing home could turn into a healthiness hub, an informal volunteering app could provide support to older people. All very visionary ideas, but we realized that it would take decades to implement these visions as designers, and doing it one building at a time was just not fast enough.

This is why I started to write New Aging, a book that takes everything I have learned about aging and how society, architecture, and cities can perform better, and breaks it down into simple principles and actions that all of us can take today and every day so we can live smarter now to live better foreverpersonally and as a society.

Matthias Hollwich

INTRODUCTION

Live Smarter Now to Live Better Forever

New Aging is an eye-opening guide to life, offering easily implementable steps that have a positive effect on our long-term future.

This process begins with developing a new attitude toward aging: Expanding our social reach by inviting friends into our family circle, finding new ways to stay relevant to the world around us, adopting habits for staying fit and eating well, experimenting with transportation alternatives to using a car, looking at our homes with a new eye (and then changing our living spaces if needed), and enlisting the services that will guarantee our independence far into the future.

We can implement this blueprint all at once or step by step throughout the years. Yes, there are hurdles that we have to overcome in life, especially when getting older, but we have the opportunity to take small, almost playful actions to remove these hurdles even before they become an issue. Once removed, they are not just gone for us; with our lives as an example, they can also be removed for our families, friends, and neighbors so we all can live the life we want, all life long.

And this is how you do it.

1

Love Aging

Imagine taking everything we associate with aging, from the loss of freedom and vitality to boredom, and throwing it out the window. These ideas are products of a society that has not yet cracked the code of aging. What if we as a society decided to transform our fear of aging into an appreciation for the beauty of living? A positive attitude toward aging is a start and will allow us to enjoy every bit of the journey. Since one of the principles of longevity is a positive attitude toward life, it might even allow us to live longer.

Aging is a gift, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As we age, we have the chance to make sure that every day counts and that we can live the life we want, all life long. The sum of a lifetime of days lived well is more valuable than any other thing in the world. Its also a gift you can give the people around you, so that they will learn these lessons early through the examples you set.

Aging Is a gift.

Give yourself the gift of living in the moment, and start each day with at least one very special experience: eat a delicious meal, meet a beloved friend, learn something new, or buy yourself a treat.

Through the passage of birth and adolescence to early adulthood and the point of reaching maturity with wisdom and calmness, every stage of life is a moment to visit with open eyes, like traveling to a new country. No matter our location, we can be explorers in our own lives by welcoming a sense of the unknown throughout life. Curiosity is the key to triggering a desire to explore and experience more.

Take the Trip of a Lifetime.

Try something new this week, from the simplelike reorganizing a part of your home or visiting a new part of your townto something more dramaticlike swimming, gardening, or stargazing.