Partnerships

Familiar ground: Ageing gracefully in places we know

May 2026 | CDE News Research at CDE

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A new NUS–UCL partnership is reimagining how our neighbourhoods can support people living with dementia, starting with the streets, spaces and systems they are already familiar with.

Singapore is on track to become a “super-aged” society this year, with more than one in five residents aged 65 and above. Seven of the city-state’s 24 regions have already crossed that threshold. According to the 2023 Well-being of the Singapore Elderly study conducted by the Institute of Mental Health, roughly one in 11 people aged 60 and over lives with dementia. The Ministry of Health (MOH) projects that 152,000 people will live with the condition by 2030.

The speed at which Singapore completed the transition from “ageing” to “superaged” is striking — it took just 27 years, compared to 36 for Japan and 86 for the United States. And it raises a question that extends well beyond healthcare: how should the places where people live — the corridors, crossings, void decks and bus stops of ordinary Housing and Development Board (HDB) neighbourhoods — adapt to keep pace with the people who use them?

A narrower lens than we think

An ongoing partnership between the College of Design and Engineering (CDE) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and University College London (UCL) is tackling that question through a cross-sector approach. Led by Associate Professor Emi Kiyota, Director of the Centre for Environment and Ageing Well (ENgAGE) at CDE, and Professor Nick Tyler, Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory (PEARL) at UCL, the collaboration brings together researchers, policymakers, practitioners and, critically, people with lived experience of dementia to examine the condition through a systems-level perspective.

The project’s goal is to explore how urban systems, public transport and neighbourhoods can evolve so that older persons, including those living with dementia, can continue to live, move and engage meaningfully, and with dignity, within their own communities.

“Beyond the familiar ‘hard’ components of ageing well, such as buildings or transport systems, our partnership with UCL also explores a new way of living, one that keeps people connected to the places and people they know,” says Assoc Prof Kiyota.

A shared purpose

Earlier in February 2026, ENgAGE and UCL PEARL co-hosted a two-day roundtable at the Ministry of National Development Building, organised with the support of the British High Commission Singapore and the Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC).

The sessions drew more than 100 participants, including senior policymakers and researchers from MOH, HDB, the Agency for Integrated Care, Building and Construction Authority, Land Transport Authority, the National Research Foundation, NParks and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, alongside Dementia Singapore, healthcare providers, and design and engineering firms.

The discussions highlighted a shared recognition: no single agency can deliver a dementia-inclusive future alone. Several themes emerged with force. Dementia inclusive design must support multiple modes of interaction — verbal, sensory, environmental and cultural. Design and social systems should respect lived perception rather than impose a strictly “objective” reality. And supporting people living with dementia demands a whole-of-society response, including education and awareness at every level.

The group also acknowledged that many initiatives are still designed for people living with dementia rather than with them. Co-creative workshops jointly organised by ENgAGE and PEARL are designed to change that, with a few more workshops planned in the coming months to conduct immersive testing at UCL PEARL and to build a research and implementation framework with policy recommendations.

Beyond the clinical

The UK has invested heavily in pharmaceutical approaches to dementia — over £430 million between 2017 and 2023 through the Dementia Research Institute alone. But the results have been limited. Attention is increasingly turning to the non-medical dimensions of care: how the built environment, transport networks and community structures can support people in remaining where they are and living well.

This is the space ENgAGE was established to occupy. The centre coordinates placebased, ageing-related research across multiple disciplines, from architecture and engineering to medicine and social sciences, with a mandate to build partnerships that translate research into practical, community-grounded solutions. Its portfolio spans senior housing typologies, spatial-behavioural studies of older persons in Singapore’s public housing and the testing of elder-led community models adapted from Japan.

Singapore’s policy infrastructure is already moving in this direction. The government’s Age Well SG initiative has more than tripled the number of Active Ageing Centres since 2021 and expanded community-based support for seniors.

“What NUS and UCL are building together provides a systematic way to ask better questions about how neighbourhoods work for the people who live in them, and to test the answers before the environment is built,” adds Assoc Prof Kiyota. “The complex challenges of ageing cannot be solved by a single researcher, a single policymaker, a single discipline or a single country. Bringing all of them together enables us to design neighbourhoods that accommodate and celebrate ageing. That’s what familiar ground should feel like.”

“It is to foster conditions where regenerative rest can emerge naturally. Technology should be a participant in that process, not an instrument of control.”