The current group has re-set the bar. It is highly likely that Boomers will push the envelope and erase our stereotype completely. Among the new industries spawned by current retirees are communities like Sun City and graduated-care complexes. Designing facilities that meet Boomers' high aesthetic standards and their need to appear youthful while coping with the realities of the aging process will no doubt require a marriage of edginess, luxury, ease and convenience. After all, this crowd expects to match their grandchildren at tennis in the afternoon and get down with James Brown in the evening.
Boomers also have nostalgia for a time and place that never was.
Both combine the virtues of the past with the technologies of the future. The expression of our yearning is a new form of theater, one in which we all participate. This question signals the experience economy at work. The architect now is a producer-a blend of I.M. Pei and P.T. Barnum. The catch in all this is that we don't want the theater to be obvious.