Ages et Vie: Personalised care and a richer social life for the elderly in rural France

Introduction

In rural France, the elderly who can’t live independently at home any more must, in most cases, go into an institution that specialises in care of the elderly. This solution is often traumatic for them – in many cases, having spent their entire life in the countryside, it means moving to a town that’s a long way away and far from their relatives and friends. In France, 6000 local authorities have between 100-3000 inhabitants and they generally lack adequate facilities for taking care of elderly persons.

In order to deal with this issue, the architect and urban planner Nicolas Perrette developed the housing concept Ages&Vie (‘Age and Life’). The first Ages&Vie house was opened in the administrative district Creuse en 2009, the département with the highest number of elderly people in France.