Riverborne Refuge
As people retire, they move out from big cities, yet their healthcare fails to follow them. With the UK’s aging population, doesn’t this seem contradictory?
Such was the question of my final year thesis project, and I uncovered a deeper underlying problem of border poverty. With a growing trend of recently-retired individuals choosing to retire in rural areas outside of urban centres, they inadvertently distance themselves further from the hospitals and emergency care services. This isolates them from time-sensitive, life-saving care that they only grow more dependent on as time passes.
To counter this self-destructive trend, my proposal uses drones to decentralise healthcare to their rural communities, tailoring geriatric & emergency services to each distant community. By building around the river Eden’s opportunity for outdoor wellbeing, my proposal turns the river into a shared public commons of both vital healthcare & green well-being; a riverborne refuge.
