Designing for Connection: From Intergenerational Insight to System Change in Housing and Place

The publication of Creating Intergenerational Communities marks a significant moment in the evolution of thinking around housing, place and social infrastructure in the UK. For some time, the direction of travel has been clear. A huge thank you to Housing Lin for driving this agenda forward.

The UK is becoming increasingly age-segregated, not only in patterns of residence, but in how people participate in community life, access opportunity and relate to one another. While this has often been framed as a social or cultural concern, its implications are far more fundamental. Age segmentation shapes health outcomes, influences demand on public services and affects the long-term resilience of communities. What has been less developed, until recently, is a coherent response at the level of systems. This report begins to address that gap.

At Intergenerational England, we were pleased to submit this topic to the APPG and it has been incredibly encouraging to see the depth of engagement that has followed. Hearing Anna Dixon, Lord Best and Minister Baroness Taylor of Stevenage speak so clearly and passionately about the importance of intergenerational approaches reflects a growing recognition that this is no longer a peripheral issue, but a central consideration in how we design the places and systems of the future. Alongside this, the continued work of partners such as Housing LIN and Lois Beech has played an important role in building the evidence, language and momentum that has brought us to this point.

Recent national polling undertaken by Intergenerational England highlights a clear and important paradox. While 84% of people report being open to building relationships with those from different generations, most social networks remain tightly concentrated within narrow age bands. This disconnect is not driven by lack of willingness, but by lack of opportunity. The same evidence points to persistent structural barriers: the absence of shared community spaces, the segmentation of services and workplaces, and the gradual erosion of everyday settings in which different generations might naturally interact. In this context, intergenerational disconnection is not incidental, it is designed into the way places and systems currently operate. The consequences are increasingly visible. Loneliness, declining community cohesion and growing pressure on health and care systems are not isolated issues, but interconnected outcomes of a more fragmented social fabric.

One of the most important contributions of this report is the shift in how intergenerational practice is understood. It is no longer sufficient to view intergenerational activity as a series of discrete programmes or community initiatives. Rather, it must be recognised as a form of social infrastructure — something that shapes how people live, connect and support one another across the life course. This framing reflects what many across the sector have been working towards for some time: a move away from short-term intervention towards longer-term, embedded approaches that influence design, delivery and decision-making at multiple levels.

Evidence from practice continues to reinforce this shift. Delivery and evaluation from Intergenerational Music Making demonstrate that structured intergenerational approaches can operate at meaningful scale, with work delivered across dozens of localities and in partnership with organisations spanning health, housing, education and community sectors. Across this work, outcomes show a high degree of consistency: improved mental health and wellbeing, increased confidence, and stronger social connection for participants, alongside more relational cultures within institutional settings. These findings are significant not only because of their scale, but because of their consistency, indicating that when connection is intentionally designed and supported, it produces reliable and repeatable benefits across different contexts.

In a housing context, this reinforces the importance of thinking about intergenerationality not as a fixed model, but as a sliding scale. At one end, this may involve light-touch activation of existing communities, creating shared spaces, programming and opportunities for interaction within current housing stock. At the other, it can extend to fully integrated, purpose-designed developments where intergenerational connection is embedded into the fabric of place through design, service integration and long-term stewardship. Crucially, this framing recognises that progress does not rely solely on new developments. There is significant untapped potential within existing neighbourhoods to move along this scale — gradually strengthening connection, enhancing social infrastructure and improving outcomes over time.

The focus within this report on housing and the built environment is therefore both timely and necessary. Housing shapes the conditions within which social relationships either emerge or are constrained. Decisions about tenure, layout, shared space and community infrastructure influence whether people encounter one another, whether interaction is possible, and whether connection can be sustained over time. While the UK is already multigenerational, it is not yet intergenerational at scale. The distinction is important. Multigenerational describes demographic coexistence; intergenerational requires intention, the deliberate design of environments and systems that enable meaningful interaction across age groups.

What is increasingly clear is that the opportunity now lies in moving from insight to implementation. There is a growing sense of shared purpose across housing providers, developers, local authorities and wider partners, with an increasing appetite to explore how intergenerational principles can be embedded within both new developments and existing communities. The energy across the sector is notable, not only in terms of ambition, but in a willingness to collaborate, learn and test new approaches.

This next phase will require coordination, shared frameworks and a continued commitment to building the evidence base. It will also require a shift in how systems understand their role - from serving age-defined groups to enabling connection across the life course. Encouragingly, the foundations for this are beginning to take shape, with partners coming together to explore what more integrated, long-term approaches could look like in practice.

The publication of this report should therefore be seen not as a conclusion, but as a catalyst. It reflects how far the conversation has come, and signals what is now possible. The task ahead is to ensure that this momentum is sustained, translating insight into action, and shaping housing, services and neighbourhoods where connection across generations is not incidental, but integral.

There is a growing alignment across housing providers, developers, local authorities and national partners and a clear appetite to move beyond pilots towards scalable, system-level change. We are excited to be working alongside partners to help shape this next phase, developing the thinking, frameworks and collaborations that will turn this ambition into reality.