The Chronic City

10 to 14% of the adult population in the UK has chronic pain classed as moderate to severely disabling and among those aged 75 and above, 62% live with chronic pain. With computer working, back pain is rising in the young. With increased ageing populations, public spaces are edging into hostile territories, and with Long Covid causing correlating symptoms of fatigue, chronic access to public life is vital. 

 

The Chronic City explores the concept of continual rehabilitation (and maintenance) in relation to the body and the city. In a continual state of recovery, the chronic subject introduces routines and mechanisms for daily relief to maintain a version of equilibrium. This project outlines new territories for chronic access whilst understanding “the chronic” as a lens through which better healing design practice might be created for all. The main “rehabilitation goals” are considered to include: 1. social participation, 2. health, 3. maximising quality of life and 4. functionality. The Chronic City identifies sites along a route, leverage points in pain-inducing or exacerbating contexts where we might intervene with retrofit healing: “Therapeutic Interventions.” 

 

After creating a survey and conducting interviews with people with a range of chronic conditions, it was found that the majority had correlating experiences and needs. In framing “correlating needs” and not “distinct conditions” in silos, the project is interested in defining a porosity in the boundaries between conditions, and through this a solidarity and power in numbers. Each human has its own condition and constellation of needs in relation to the urban environment. 

 

The Chronic City is explored through hand drawings, 3D modelling, painting, video animation and poetics, with a design framework for retrofit healing in the city, translating experiences into policy aims and a proposal to situate and envision this renewed care in provisioning. The proposal and research is collected into a video: the Chronic City.