Deane Simpson

I believe that all people need to move about. Actually, some have difficulties in doing so. They stay in their home neighbourhoods where they’ve grown up and feel safe. I can understand that, but my wife and I, we didn’t want that. We are more open to new ideas. This anthology is about seniors on the move. In seven chapters, Nordic researchers from various disciplines, by means of ethnographic methods, attempt to comprehend the phenomenon of Nordic seniors who move to leisure areas in their own or in other countries. The number of people involved in this kind of migratory movement has grown considerably within the last 20 years. Costa del Sol, along the Mediterranean coastline and Österlen in Southern Sweden are two examples of locations that have become attractive to lifestyle migrants. The warmer climate and the expectations of a certain quality of life are recurrent pull factors. The quote above gives voice to one of these seniors, stressing the necessity of moving. The anthology contributes to the international body of literature about later life migration, specifically representing experiences made by Nordic seniors. As shown here, mobility and migration in later life have implications for identities, traditions, feelings of belonging, family and friends, health, images of old age, societal planning and policies, and even for religious attachment. The book presents a joint statement, intended for international scholars in the field, but also for Nordic policymakers and practitioners involved in the daily life and needs of the people who move in later life. The editors Anne Leonora Blaakilde and Gabriella Nilsson are both ethnologists affiliated with the Center for Healthy Ageing, University of Copenhagen, Denmark and the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden, respectively.

Closer to Things: Drawing Practices as Spatial Research examines drawing as a critical research methodology in architecture and the spatial disciplines. Moving beyond drawing’s conventional role as a prescriptive design tool, the publication addresses how drawing can be deployed as an analytical instrument to investigate, or get “closer to,” urgent matters of concern in the existing built environment. Through this lens, drawing becomes a potent tool to reveal and communicate complex and often obscured spatial conditions of social inequality, economic asymmetries, environmental degradation or climatic crisis. This publication comprises an extended text by the authors interrogating different forms of research agency performed through drawing; a curated archive of relevant historical and contemporary drawings paired with theoretical reflections; and a series of new interviews and conversations on drawing’s research agency with practitioners and researchers such as Momoyo Kaijima, Eyal Weizman, Fei Fei Zhou, Laura Kurgan, Huda Tayob and Denise Scott-Brown, amongst others. Relevant reading for researchers, practitioners and students alike, Closer to Things frames drawing not just as a creative act, but as a powerful tool of critical spatial inquiry.

Gerontopia examines contemporary architectural and urban mutations that have emerged as a consequence of one of the key demographic transformations of our time: population aging. Distinguishing between different phases of old age, it identifies the group known as the "Young-Old" as a remarkable petri dish for experimental forms of subjectivity, collectivity, and environment. In investigating this field of latent urban and architectural novelty, Gerontopia asserts both the escapist and emancipatory dimensions of these practices. Richly illustrated with drawings, maps, and photographs, the volume documents phenomena ranging from the continuous, golf cart accessible urban landscapes of the world's largest retirement community in Florida and the mono-national urbanizaciones of "the retirement home of Europe" on Costa del Sol, to the Dutch-themed residential community at Huis Ten Bosch in the south of Japan.