Ville Nouvelle Temara: Senior Living Built as a Walled Neighbourhood of Courtyards and Shared Rooms

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This article was written by UNI Editorial and published on uni.xyz, a platform for design professionals and creative thinkers.

Q: What is "Ville Nouvelle Temara: Senior Living Built as a Walled Neighbourhood of Courtyards and Shared Rooms" about?

This article covers topics related to Future City, Senior Living, Youth Architecture, Community Architecture, Ageing-Well Design, Urban Design, Architecture. Joshua Meier's shortlisted Co-Life entry folds homes, palm courtyards and public programmes into one Temara block to keep ageing residents in the city.

Joshua Meier's shortlisted Co-Life entry folds homes, palm courtyards and public programmes into one Temara block to keep ageing residents in the city.

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UNI Editorial published Results under Future City, Senior Living on Aug 25, 2026

Most housing for older people is designed around what residents can no longer do. Ville Nouvelle Temara starts from the opposite question: what kind of city would you build if ageing were treated as a reason to stay connected rather than a reason to withdraw? The answer here is not a care facility with a garden attached. It is a compact urban block where private homes, courtyards, gardens, shops, workshops and civic rooms operate together, a city within the city for Temara's elderly population.

Designed by Joshua Meier and shortlisted in the Co-Life competition, the proposal looks closely at the Moroccan city it sits in. Strong perimeter walls, narrow streets, enclosed blocks and public buildings gathered around central spaces all feed into the scheme. Accessibility and care still matter, but the project treats social belonging, independence, climate and identity as equally fundamental to architecture for ageing.

A Perimeter Wall That Protects an Inner World

Presentation board with two long sections, a courtyard elevation framed by palm trees and a small plan of ground floor community rooms

The presentation board sets out the project's urban logic in two long sections and a courtyard elevation framed by palm trees. Dense perimeter construction defines the edges of the block, while the interior opens into shaded, planted courts. This is a familiar Temara pattern: a hard, earthy outer face toward the street and a softer, more intimate world inside. Meier borrows it deliberately, so the development reads as part of the existing city rather than an imported model of elderly housing.

The small plan of ground floor community rooms in the corner of the board hints at the project's real ambition. The wall is not there to keep the city out. It gives residents a protected, legible territory they can navigate easily, while the shared programmes inside give outsiders a reason to step through the gate.

Two Palm Courtyards and a Civic Spine

Ground floor plan drawing showing apartment strips around two palm courtyards and blue community rooms along a central axis

The ground floor plan is the clearest diagram of the idea. Strips of apartments wrap two palm courtyards, and a line of community rooms, picked out in blue, runs along a central axis between them. That spine works like a street through the block, recalling the way a public square traditionally organises neighbourhood life. Restaurants, shops, galleries, educational spaces, an event hall, healthcare facilities and workshops give the axis its public character.

The layering is what makes it convincing. Moving from apartment door to courtyard to shared spine to city, residents pass through a sequence of private, semi-private, communal and public spaces. For older people, this gradient matters: it allows a resident to choose how much company they want on a given day without leaving home ground. Streets, courts and squares are also far more intuitive to navigate than the long institutional corridors that define so much senior housing.

Shared Rooms That Invite Other Generations In

Isometric drawing of a blue-floored communal room with square columns, easels, café tables and people gathering beside a sunlit loggia

The isometric of a communal room shows what the blue strip on the plan actually feels like. Square columns frame a generous space with easels, café tables and people gathering beside a sunlit loggia. It is an indoor room that leans toward the outdoors, a pairing the project returns to repeatedly as it mixes traditional and contemporary ideas.

This is where the scheme takes on social isolation directly. The research behind the project recognises that older residents are often gradually separated from younger generations, and that conventional retirement facilities can deepen that separation. A studio with easels or a café table is programme anyone in Temara might want to use. By placing such rooms at the heart of the block, Meier turns the residential community into a destination, and everyday contact between generations becomes a by-product of the plan rather than a scheduled activity.

Upper Floors Keep the Courtyards in View

Upper floor plan drawing showing rows of apartments around two palm-planted courts and a central strip of shared rooms

Upstairs, the same structure repeats with a quieter emphasis. Rows of apartments line the two palm-planted courts, and a central strip of shared rooms continues above the civic spine. Communal space is not confined to the ground floor, which means residents on upper levels are never more than a short walk from company. The courts stay in view from the homes around them, keeping a visual link to the life of the block even when residents stay in.

An Apartment Scaled for Independence and Visitors

Isometric cutaway drawing of an apartment interior with a bed, two armchairs, dining table and two people talking beside built-in cabinets

The cutaway of an apartment interior brings the project down to the scale of daily life. A bed, two armchairs, a dining table and built-in cabinets fill a compact home, and two people sit talking. The drawing is modest but pointed: the private unit is designed for hosting as well as resting. Two chairs and a table suggest a resident who still receives friends, family and neighbours on their own terms.

That emphasis on independence anchors the whole scheme. The apartment is a home first, not a care room, and it sits within a network of shared spaces that extend it outward. Privacy and community are not traded against each other; the plan makes room for both.

Why This Project Matters

Ville Nouvelle Temara reframes senior living as an urban design problem rather than a building type. By borrowing Temara's walls, courtyards, narrow streets and civic squares, it gives older residents an environment that feels recognisable, and by loading the block with public programme, it keeps that environment connected to the wider population. The architecture argues that the best defence against isolation is not more care infrastructure but more reasons for people to cross paths.

For a competition focused on co-living, this is a valuable contribution. Meier shows that a carefully layered sequence of private, shared and public space can let ageing happen in the middle of a city instead of at its edges. The model is grounded in local climate and urban culture, yet its core lesson travels well: design housing for older people as a neighbourhood, and they remain neighbours.