Designed by David Baker architects, the Dr. George W. Davis Senior Building, in San Francisco, includes a 15,000-square-foot senior community day center and 121 affordable homes for local low-income and formerly homeless seniors.  | Bruce Damonte

A new Pratt exhibition explores the opportunities for design to make our later years more fulfilling There are three design fears that keep Jeremy Myerson, a professor and chair of design at the Royal College of Art, up at night: poorly designed mobility scooters, stairlifts, and walkers.
?Why is [design for the elderly] so bad"? he wondered in a recent Tedx talk. ?Why is it all about medical looking aids and appliances" Why is it sourced from obscure catalogs rather than the Conran shop" Who thought that white plastic grab rails in a kitchen are a good idea" Why are expectations so low, so beige, so bland"? As Myerson observed, aging has traditionally been perceived as a medical problem characterized by illness, decline, and dependency. But as the cultural understanding of aging changes (retirement, for example, is increasingly less of an option), so does our perception of how older people might want to live in their homes. In New Old, a new exhibition at Pratt Institute?s Manhattan gallery open until May 23, Myerson explores what that might look like.
?We want years full of life rather than life full of years,? Myerson, who is in his early 60s, tells Curbed. ?We want them to be active an...