enDansa: age-friendly neighbourhood
Social and urban innovation

The layout of a space is not neutral. Every day, our cities are the scene of multiple discriminations: to a large extent our physical environments determine who will take centre stage and who will remain in the wings. Faced with this reality, we are committed to education as a driver of social change, via implementation of the enDansa methodology.

The project “enDansa: creating neighbourhoods for the elderly” was chosen to benefit from the Valencia City Council’s 2020 initiative for Social and Urban Innovation. It proposes the incorporation of a new teaching practice at the UPV’s School of Architecture, based on the perception and analysis of a space via the experience of the body in all its diverse forms. We employ contemporary dance to acquire a greater spatial awareness of the Nazareth neighbourhood of Valencia, and to detect the environmental deficiencies encountered daily by the local elderly population. After all, a city fit for the elderly is a city fit for the whole population.

“We often fall into the trap of worrying more about how to hang the door, rather than how they will later manage to cross the threshold.”

“We don’t realise the extent to which the design of public spaces influences the way in which people use them.”

“Once you begin to notice all the limits and barriers that a public space represents, it’s like an avalanche, there’s no stopping it. Normally they are invisible – we normalise things that for others may represent a real difficulty.”

“I usually design spaces full of light, but as part of this exercise I chose to be in a place that was darker and I felt really comfortable… I’m thinking about how I might use this in my next project.”

Quotes from the enDansa final discussion group