ABSTRACT
In this final chapter, we posit that the social and economic ‘engine’ of healthcare and ageing might benefit from and bring diversity to other large suburban entities in a manner where combinations and conflations of purpose and activity enrich the overall suburban experience. This potential is particularly in the form of new qualities that could emerge in suburban public and semi-public realms, or edge conditions, which have been conventionally separated from the spaces of living and domesticity through zoning, physical barriers and spatial buffers. Our suburbs contain many very large and productive objects and conglomerations, such as hospitals, shopping centres, university campuses and ‘big-box’ retail clusters, all of which are currently being transformed from their original single-purpose nature to more hybrid and diverse conglomerations.
We reimagine middle suburbia by releasing the potentials locked up in these large entities that are spread through the suburbs. We illustrate this with one completed design proposal that uses all the parts and pieces developed in preceding chapters.
The western edge of a large university campus is transformed into a new residential and allied health precinct—an experiment which turns the conventional nursing home model on its head—instead of being a single-use island or ‘ghetto’, it has become a multi-use centre, or filter, through which other people and activities can pass.
