If the ambition is for older Australians to not only live longer, but to live well for longer, then aged care should not be the starting point. The right questions need to be asked much earlier, while a person is still living independently.

For example, what happens when the family home becomes too large for one person, and the community around them begins to narrow? When friends pass away, routines fall away, and there are fewer reasons to leave the house, isolation can begin to affect far more than someone’s social life. It can impact their confidence, mobility, mood, and cognition, and at that point, support can become urgent.

Residential aged care will always have an essential role to play, and for many people, it is the right and necessary setting. The issue is not its value, but the point at which it enters the conversation. I believe that the response to ageing needs to come earlier.

That means looking beyond care needs alone and considering the conditions that shape a person’s quality of life, such as whether the family home is still the most appropriate place for them, whether home services are accessible and genuinely useful, and whether their environment gives them reasons to stay active, engaged, and visible.

The pressure tells us the lens is too narrow

Older Australians are now waiting an average of 364 days* for ongoing Support at Home services, and 396 days* for residential aged care. At the same time, almost 3,300* older Australians are in public hospital beds despite being medically ready for discharge, because a more appropriate setting is not available.

Those numbers are often read as an aged care capacity problem. And at face value, they are. But each of those waiting periods is also reflecting the time in an individual’s life when the wrong environment has the potential to cause health decline.

For someone living alone, waiting almost a year for support can mean another year of household tasks becoming harder, social contact becoming less frequent, and the world beyond their front door feeling further and further away.

For someone medically ready to leave the hospital, the issue is not only that a bed is being occupied; it is that they are waiting in the wrong setting, often losing strength and purpose while the system works out where they can safely go next.

This is what a reactive later-life system looks like at the level of the individual. Support arrives once a person’s world has already become smaller, rather than being built around them early enough to help keep that world open.

Design-led seniors living communities are part of the answer

Retirement living is often framed as a lifestyle choice or a property decision. In reality, wellness-led seniors living communities have a much more important role to play in Australia’s later-life system, because they can change the conditions of daily life before a person reaches crisis.

At their best, these communities offer a very different proposition to ageing alone in a traditional house. A person can right-size into a home that is easier to manage, without losing privacy or independence. They can have like-minded neighbours close by, activities within reach, shared spaces that give structure and socialisation to the day and support that can be introduced without every new need becoming a major life disruption.

Instead of relying on a shrinking circle of friends, family and support, a resident is part of a community where people are more likely to notice if their routine changes. Instead of family visits happening in a house that has become difficult to host in, there are spaces for grandchildren to stay, Christmas lunches to happen and everyday life to feel expanded rather than reduced.

When holistic mental and physical wellbeing is built into the fabric of a community, it can help delay the need for residential aged care. In some cases, they may help people avoid that transition altogether. With the right ageing-in-place infrastructure, support can come to the individual rather than forcing them to move into a higher-care setting before they are ready.

And that is where the wellness model becomes powerful.

A retirement living resident may begin with complete independence, then later receive allied health, domestic assistance, social support, meal support, transport, personal care or nursing care within the same familiar community. Care can increase gradually and with dignity, without a person having to lose their home, their neighbours or their sense of autonomy.

For architects, this changes the brief

A later-life environment should not only be designed to meet compliance, deliver enough dwellings, or provide a list of standardised amenities. A more human-centred approach considers how a community can help individuals live a fuller life, possibly even entering their best chapter yet.

Applying a day-in-the-life approach helps test those realities, shaping communities around how people actually live rather than around a narrow idea of older age. That means design that enables movement, privacy, family visits, new friendships, the pursuit of hobbies and learning, and support that can be introduced as needed without the environment feeling clinical.

A more complete later-life system

Our work across seniors living, aged care, land lease living, and intergenerational precincts has shown us that people are entering aged care later, and that makes demand for high-quality aged care higher. But it also makes the years before that downstream solution more important than ever.

If Australia is serious about supporting its ageing population, we need to think less in isolated categories and more in connected settings. The opportunity is not to blur the line between retirement living and aged care, but to design the years before care becomes the only option.

By Frank Bambino, Founder and Managing Director of VIA Architects

Image: The proposed Arcare Alphington aged care facility will be designed to elevate the living experience for its senior residents. Located at the former Alphington Paper Mill site, this potential development pushes the boundaries of vertical residential aged care while adding a distinctive presence to the Paper Mill precinct / https://viaarchitects.com.au/projects/aged-care/arcare-alphington-paper-mill/

*Source: Aged Care Act 2024 Wait Times Report: Residential care and Support at Home First report, Published: 12 May 2026

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