AARP Hearing Center
Adapted from Making Room: Housing for a Changing America, a publication by AARP Livable Communities and the National Building Museum
Creating housing that works for people of all ages requires outside-the-box thinking and a bold vision.
That’s what architect and innovator Matthias Hollwich achieved with Skyler, a housing concept envisioned as a “New Aging Tower” that offers residents a home and community for all of life’s stages.
![Skyler-A New Aging Tower Skyler-A New Aging Tower](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarpe/en/home/livable-communities/housing/info-2018/making-room-looking-forward-skyler/_jcr_content/root/container_main/container_body_main/container_body1/container_body_cf/body_one_cf_one/par2/articlecontentfragmeImage2/cfimage.coreimg.50.932.jpeg/content/dam/aarp/livable-communities/housing/2018/11-/665x1326-skyler.jpg)
Looking Forward
Pictured: A floor-by-floor schematic diagram of Skyler and a rendering of the tower's window-filled exterior
![Exterior of Skyler Tower Exterior of Skyler Tower](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarpe/en/home/livable-communities/housing/info-2018/making-room-looking-forward-skyler/_jcr_content/root/container_main/container_body_main/container_body1/container_body_cf/body_one_cf_one/par2/articlecontentfragme/cfimage.coreimg.50.932.jpeg/content/dam/aarp/livable-communities/housing/2018/11-/1140x665-skylar.jpg)
Combining apartments, social areas, childcare, work spaces, health care facilities and a spiritual center, Skyler is a “place where generations commingle, where the young can invigorate the old and the old can mentor the young,” Hollwich explains.
The imagined structure contains 600 residential units, including micro studios for millennials, duplexes that serve as single-family residences and co-living apartments that foster community.
Amenities include laundry and grocery shopping services as well as shared transportation options.
The existence of supportive, aging-inclusive communities could reduce the frequency of older people moving to assisted living facilities and nursing homes since, Hollwich notes, many residents in such places “are there because of social deficits, not physical deficits. They are craving a sense of community.”
“It has been the easy solution to say, ‘Old people go here and young people go somewhere else,’” says Hollwich, who’s also the author of New Aging: Live Smarter Now to Live Forever. “That has been the architectural response to aging for the last hundred years.”
But, he adds: “If you design for older people, you can create places that are good for everyone.”
More About Housing
- A Past and Future Vision for Aging in Place
- Tour "The House of Freedom"
- All About Accessory Dwelling Units
- All About "Missing Middle Housing"
- AARP HomeFit Guide
Free Guide
![The front and back covers of Making Room, a publication of AARP and the National Building Museum The front and back covers of Making Room, a publication of AARP and the National Building Museum](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarpe/en/home/livable-communities/housing/info-2018/making-room-looking-forward-skyler/_jcr_content/root/container_main/container_body_main/container_body1/container_body_cf/body_one_cf_one/par9/articlecontentfragme/cfimage.coreimg.50.932.jpeg/content/dam/aarp/livable-communities/housing/2018/11-/1140-making-room-covers.jpg)
Making Room: Housing for a Changing America was published in 2019