Recreational Spaces: How Best to Design and Cater for Older People’s Safe Engagement in Physical Activity

Recreational spaces, such as local parks, are important public spaces for the community to engage in various activities. With the global ageing population, the concept of multigenerational recreational spaces has become popular in recent years with the aim to design active spaces to cater for all age groups, including older people. However, designing multigenerational spaces that enable safe usage by older people can be challenging due to the competing interests and needs of different age groups. This paper is a reflective narrative describing four case studies of multigenerational outdoor spaces in Melbourne, Australia with the inclusion of age-friendly equipment and analysing parks layout and design using aerial imagery data. Factors impacting safe usage of the space by older people were identified and discussed. The main challenges identified in the recreational case study areas included: proximity of the seniors’ exercise area relative to children’s play-spaces, accessibility, layout of the area, and surrounding features which can pose potential safety risks for older people or be a deterrent for visiting the parks. The information described in this paper provides practical learnings relating to park layout, proximity of different spaces, and strategies that may be required to be implemented to facilitate safe usage of the space by older people for better multigenerational design. A national recreational age-friendly policy is also needed to provide overarching guidelines to assist local governments in the design and delivery of inclusive multigenerational recreational spaces.