Reimagining rural futures through the agency of elder generations
Client: Maison de l’Architecture et des espaces de Bretagne Date: Janvier 2025
Climate change is redrawing migratory cartographies, bringing new inhabitants to central Brittany: young retirees seeking milder climates. Through a co-constructed diagnosis with Gourin residents and public institutions, we developed an optimistic territorial foresight that anticipates demographic evolutions to reveal their potential. This action-research interrogates the place of the "silver age" in society, questioning traditional representations of aging to detect social innovation opportunities. Using fiction and narrative as design tools, we connect existing territorial issues to systemically rethink rural lifestyles: mobility, biodiversity, intergenerational solidarity. The project repositions seniors as transformation agents rather than burdens, revealing how their experience and resources can catalyze new rural development models, including work, employment, and ecological issues to make the "silver age" a lever for rural lifestyle evolution.