The word representation can be understood as both an act of depicting a subject and of advocating on behalf of a subject. Elderly Entourage is a resource website that advocates for increased visual representation of older people in architectural imagery.
Architectural entourage have become increasingly available online but the vast majority depict able-bodied, fashionable, white people. These youthful figures get used around the world in architectural renderings, setting a precedent for who belongs and who does not in these future built environments.
Meanwhile populations around the world are increasingly aging, yet the presence of older people within the projective environments of architectural visualizations is limited. This initiative seeks to counter our cultural and architectural obsession with youthfulness and broaden perceptions around the experience of aging. Through an expanding collection of annotated entourage, Elderly Entourage advocates for the increased engagement with and design consideration of the diverse embodied experiences of older people.
Elderly Entourage is available for academic use at
The website emerged through an collaborative exercise in the New Normal(s) seminar with contributions from the following students: Alexa Russo,
Alexandra Sheehan,
Amrutha Boban, Andrea Gonzalez,
Arisha Shahid,
Emma McAneny,
Euychan Jeong, Jarrett Trudeau,
Kelsey Habla,
Lauren Kennedy, Ruchita Chandsarkar,
Ryan Olsen