Abstract

The design quality of the built environment is key determinant of the environmental, social and economic wellbeing of urban and rural areas that affects quality of life. Sustainable practices in the built environment require a new way of doing things; a way which reduces environmental impact and promotes economic and social sustainability. Social capital, which constitutes the social bonds and norms and acts as the ‘glue that holds societies together’ is fundamental to the social sustainability of communities. The design and form of cities, towns, neighbourhoods and individual buildings have significant implications on social capital as they affect the way people interact and bond with each other and the sense of community. The building forms of supported housing and care homes also impact on social capital. The paper evaluates negative and positive contributions to social capital in rural care and extra care homes in Lincolnshire, based on findings from a series of workshops and individual interviews with stakeholders and end-users. These are juxtaposed to findings from a socio-spatial analysis of the first ever dementia village, at Netherlands. The paper identifies exclusionary building practices, which could impact on how residents interact with each other, with staff as well as their personal and social network including families. These exclusionary mechanisms that certain typologies might foster, eventually might endanger fragile bonding and bridging capital. This combined to the growing evidence that supports the high importance of social capital for rural communities, generates the need for socially sustainable and inclusive practices that prevent resources from being allocated to newly built ‘ghettos’. That could be achieved by revisiting and investing in existing village hubs, especially in those almost abandoned villages in deprived rural areas all over Europe and revitalise them as socially inclusive communities, active in the silver economy.