---
title: "Old People Everywhere (40)"
created: 2026-07-01
updated: 2026-07-01
type: concept
status: compiled
namespace: pattern-language
pattern_number: 40
pattern_name: "Old People Everywhere"
source_repository: https://github.com/zenodotus280/apl-md
source_url: https://github.com/zenodotus280/apl-md/blob/master/Patterns/Old%20People%20Everywhere%20%2840%29.md
license_note: Non-commercial reuse with attribution; see namespace README and source LICENSE.md.
related_patterns:
  - "Identifiable Neighborhood (14)"
  - "Life Cycle (26)"
  - "Household Mix (35)"
  - "Old Age Cottage (155)"
  - "The Family (75)"
  - "Network of Learning (18)"
  - "Children's Home (86)"
  - "Settled Work (156)"
  - "Vegetable Garden (177)"
---

# Old People Everywhere (40)

> Source pattern from the abridged `apl-md` corpus. Use as a design reference and constraint seed; do not treat as commercial-clean training data.

### Problem
>Old people need old people, but they also need the young, and young people need contact with the old.

### Solution
>Create dwellings for some 50 old people in every neighborhood. Place these dwellings in three rings…
>
>1. A central core with cooking and nursing provided.
>2. Cottages near the core.
>3. Cottages further out from the core, mixed among the other houses of the neighborhood, but never more than 200 yards from the core.
>
>…in such a way that the 50 houses together form a single coherent swarm, with its own clear center, but interlocked at its periphery with other ordinary houses of the neighborhood.

### Related Patterns
... when neighborhoods are properly formed they give the people there a cross section of ages and stages of development - [[Identifiable Neighborhood (14)]], [[Life Cycle (26)]], [[Household Mix (35)]]; however, the old people are so often forgotten and left alone in modern society, that it is necessary to formulate a special pattern which underlines their needs.

Treat the core like any group house; make sure all the cottages, both those close to and those further away, small - [[Old Age Cottage (155)]], some of them perhaps connected to the larger family houses in the neighborhoods - [[The Family (75)]]; provide every second or third core with proper nursing facilities; somewhere in the orbit of the old age pocket, provide the kind of work which old people can manage best - especially teaching and looking after tiny children - [[Network of Learning (18)]], [[Children's Home (86)]], [[Settled Work (156)]], [[Vegetable Garden (177)]] ...

---

> [!cite]- Alexander, Christopher. _A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction_. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 215.
> #APL/confidence/high
>
> #APL/Town-Patterns/Housing-Clusters