How integrated into their communities are aged care typologies in Canberra? An assessment of walkability

Researcher
Nicholas Brown

Published
16 June 2026

Funding
2025 Alastair Swayn Master Research Grant

Australia's ageing population highlights the need to understand how well the built environment support older adults to remain connected to their communities.

By 2066, almost one in four Australians will be over the age of 65, and many will require increasing levels of care. For some older Canberrans, this will include moving into aged care facilities or retirement villages. Despite their essential role, these typologies integration with the surrounding urban environment remains inconsistent and underexamined in relation to everyday mobility, belonging and place.

Community connection is essential to physical and emotional wellbeing. Strong social integration reduces the risks of cognitive decline, depression, cancer, and premature death. Yet social isolation affects approximately one in five older adults in Australia and rises to one in three among residents of aged care facilities. This study asks: “How integrated into their communities are aged care typologies in Canberra?”

Using walkability as a proxy for spatial and experiential integration, the research assesses the accessibility, connectedness, and inclusivity of the built environment surrounding aged care facilities. Edward Relph’s theory of place frames the investigation, interpreting walkability as not just infrastructure but as a mechanism supporting belonging, autonomy, and participation in public life. By examining pedestrian routes to suburban destinations, the study offers insight into planning frameworks necessary for age-friendly neighbourhoods.

A case study of Canberra Aged Care in Lyneham, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), forms the basis of a mixed-methods study combining the Seniors Walking Environmental Audit Tool-Revised (SWEAT-R), and spatial and visual mapping. Central to this study is a novel phenomenological graphical delayering method, developed to translate the experience of walking into a visual analytic tool. This experiential mapping abstracts sequential photographs, taken along each route, into layered graphical fields that simulate what the walker sees. By stripping back elements, the technique reveals how spatial views, sensory information and urban conditions shape feelings of belonging. 

Findings show that while many aged care facilities in the ACT lie within in a nominally walkable 800 metre distance (as the crow lies) of their closest suburban centre, the routes are often unsafe, discontinuous, or experientially fragmented. SWEAT-R scores across the case study ranged from 2.12 - 2.47 out of 3 (moderate), but masked critical 3 barriers such as missing footpaths, poor lighting, insufficient crossings, lack of shade and a limited seating. The experimental mapping further showed sensory rhythm, enclosure, and perceived safety influence willingness to walk. Segments with similar numerical scores varied markedly in experiential quality, demonstrating that environments meeting minimum standards may still be exclusionary in practice.

For policymakers, this indicates a gap between compliance-based planning and environments that genuinely support ageing in place. The study recommends: territory wide walkability audits; strengthened planning controls for footpaths, crossings, shade, lighting and seating; targeted infrastructure upgrades; walkability assessments of new aged care proposals; and participatory walk along studies with older adults. By translating walkability findings into an actionable policy, this study provides a scalable, data rich method for improving age-friendly environments across the ACT.