I wrote in my last column about a letter I had received, which levelled criticism at some points I had drawn in an earlier column. I didn’t disagree with the points made but receiving the letter and reflecting on it encouraged me to think more on what conceptual tools we have for discussing difference, architecture and community. I thought about the traditional format for collective thinking around an architectural issue — the crit — and wondered whether or not much or any of it makes its way into how we collectively discuss challenges of the built realm. It made me think of my own circumstance and the ways in which I respond to criticism in an architectural environment: both defensive and with a compulsion to please. I mean, understandable but, maybe, … maybe, a bit like I need better boundaries?.

How do we discuss difference and community through the gamut of convergent crises and the feelings they raise across generations? I had an instinct that the fleshing out of some of these ideas had to happen in conversation and, by way of discussing personally, inspire a way towards collective action through collective thought. As I draft this, I wonder if I am trying to pin down something along the lines of intergenerational feeling. If we all feel architecture has a role in the supply and quality of housing, how do we think collectively towards actionable answers?

One of my most formative experiences in architecture school was a second-year studio, with a brief for, amongst other spaces, a fashion show. I designed a series of burning structures that forced runway models to step through. Like a literal baptism of fire. While the studio was itself a tremendous amount of fun, the thing about that studio was my tutor, who opened a door for me and on the other side was community of practices and ways of being that foster it. As I mulled over my thoughts above, I decided that, if I am to talk about community, architecture and the intergenerational, I must speak to my former tutor, architect Graeme Burgess.¹

I invited Graeme to talanoa (discuss) the intergenerational with me. I asked him what he thought about intergenerational approaches to intergenerational living to begin with and, to my delight, he came right out the gate: “Right now, intergenerational feels like the only positive pathway that could resolve the increasing gulf between haves and have-nots. We have been behaving like moths in the pantry, with my crowd (boomers) chomping their way through all the resources and gathering their piles with little or no regard for future generations: a fully unsustainable model.”²

Later in the thread, he gifts his own experience with more than one generation under one roof: “… the only real way out of the current situation for society as a whole seems to be a HUGE cultural shift, away from that model of housing as investment. Embracing a wider concept of whānau could unlock this: at least, untangle it a little. We are lucky; there are models for this already through the Māori and Pacific approaches to family.

Stretching beyond the nuclear family is far from weird. I grew up with my grandfather as part of our family; he just arrived one day and never left. For a small child, it was magic and I suspect it was positive for my mother as well. Multigenerational does not mean just ‘family’ though, eh? People of all ages from different backgrounds can live together; it’s a matter of how to do this. Cities are macro versions of this: the gathering together of many people in one place with shared resources, and a mixing of people from many different backgrounds with all generations represented.”

As I read his email reply to my mix of ideas, I wonder about the current housing stock and the typologies that have come to dominate cultural imaginings of housing aspiration, such as the inner-city villa. I wanted to ask him what he thought, as a heritage expert, about their role in housing supply, given their low density, often suboptimal relationships to sunlight, their siting and, for some, their ever-increasing risk of flooding.

He replied: “Architecture has this thing where we can be carried away with drama and wonder rather than with the experiences of the day to day. Those buildings were initially built as family homes. They then became the fabric of rental suburbs, many being converted into units, being used in ways that were imaginative and adaptive. I am in favour of change and adaptation as strategies ahead of new builds. And thinking about buildings as a form of whakapapa, their stories become part of the fabric of society.”³

I think to myself, so… we can approach the issue of housing, future-facing strategies and the intergenerational as one of continuing stories. I feel something else that is, I guess, more emotional when I dwell on this idea. When we come together in person to discuss further, I notice, while we have a shared sense that there are architectural concepts, discourse and successful international precedents discussing intergenerational housing, they feel abstract and, regardless of their success, don’t really allay a sense of dread that it all may be too little too late. And that is even if the housing, living, climate and food crises abate soon.

There is also something else shared: an anger that the wrong things have the final say in the built realm and that too many young people face housing precarity. The effect of the housing crisis on young people elicits anger and frustration. In a recent report released by the country’s largest longitudinal study of child development, Growing Up in New Zealand, three key statistics paint a profoundly sad picture: 7 per cent of all the young people in the study’s cohort have experienced homelessness; 22 per cent of those that have lived in public housing had experienced homelessness; and 24 per cent of those who had moved homes involuntarily had experienced homelessness.⁴ What to do with these numbers?

We also hover in silence, both taking in a particular statistic: that the impact of loneliness on mortality is equivalent to 15 cigarettes a day. We repeat this to each other and to ourselves: 15 cigarettes a day.⁵ A few days later, I ponder this and can make sense of why we might have a shared experience of anger over young people and housing deprivation. But why might we both be struck by the health impacts of loneliness?

I grasp at a logic, and it takes me a while to put it into words. It’s because we are animals of connection and to sever connection is to cause suffering; housing can either foster or sever connection. It gives me food for thought because, while I have often thought of intergenerational housing from a cultural standpoint, I rarely sit with it as preventative of isolation and loneliness. I think about my earlier questions and wonder whether or not the answer to them is so, um, cheesy.

The way we work through difference is by acknowledging the ways in which we are the same. Is this also at the heart of why we can’t accept such devastating statistics for housing and young people and why we must hold, unwavering, to housing as a human right, even in late-stage capitalism? As I type “by acknowledging the ways in which we are the same”, my face scrunches up, resisting the cringey-ness of such a conclusion. But also, on the other hand, it must be better than 15 cigarettes a day.

With thanks to Graeme.

REFERENCES

^{1 While looking up which title to use when referring to Graeme, I found a recent ArchitectureNow article on Burgess, Treep and Knight Architects’ role in the interior fit-out for Te Pou Theatre.
2 Graeme Burgess, email message to author, May 16 2023. 
3 Ibid. 
4 Hakkan Lai, Kate Prickett, Ana Renker-Darby, Sarah-Jane Paine and Polly Atatoa Carr, ‘Housing and homelessness’, Snapshot 4, Growing Up in New Zealand can be accessed here.
5 Dylan Kneale and Trinley Walker, ‘Loneliness kills: how can housing help?’ The Guardian, Housing Network, 7 June 2013 can be accessed here.}