Dr Evangelia Chrysikou of University College London (UCL), United Kingdom, will present the keynote ‘Designing Care Futures: Built Environments, Health Systems, and Human–Robot Cohabitation in an Ageing World’ at The 12th Asian Conference on Education & International Development (ACEID2026), The 16th Asian Conference on Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences (ACP2026), and The 12th Asian Conference on Aging & Gerontology (AGen2026). Dr Chrysikou is the Founder/Programme Director of UCL’s MSc Healthcare Facilities, and is an awarded RIBA architect and healthcare planner who has consulted international organisations regarding accessible and inclusive design in healthcare.
To participate in ACP2026 as an audience member, please register for the conference via the conference website.
The panel presentation will also be available for IAFOR Members to view online as part of their membership benefits. To find out more, please visit the IAFOR Membership page.
Speaker Biography
Dr Evangelia Chrysikou
University College London, United Kingdom
Dr Evangelia Chrysikou, RIBA is Associate Professor within the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at University College London, United Kingdom, and Founder/Programme Director of the university’s MSc Healthcare Facilities. A multi-awarded RIBA architect and healthcare planner, Dr Chrysikou has published widely and won several prestigious grants and fellowships from international organisations, including Horizon 2020, UKRI, Wellcome, British Academy, Royal Society of New Zealand, and the Sasakawa Foundation. Her research interests lie at the spectrum of inclusion in relation to design, spanning across the disciplines of built environment, health, digital technologies and the social sciences. Dr Chrysikou is a member of the National Accessibility Authority, Hellenic Republic by invitation from the Greek Prime Minister, and a member of the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Life Sciences and Healthcare Council Leadership Committee. She was the coordinator of the Environment Section of the EIPonAHA, EU, and has worked as a consultant for international government bodies such as the Japanese MOFA, Peru Reconstruction Mechanism, and the British Government for projects related to healthcare planning and architecture. She was elected Vice-President of the Urban Public Health section of EUPHA in 2018.
Abstract
Longevity, Happiness, and the Art of Community: Lessons from Japan and Beyond
Population ageing represents not only a demographic or technological challenge, but fundamentally a design challenge. The built environment is not a passive backdrop to care; it actively shapes health, autonomy, behaviour, and social relations across the life course. Yet responses to ageing and vulnerability have often prioritised medical or technological solutions, while the spatial conditions of everyday life remain insufficiently addressed. This keynote integrates three interconnected domains: age-inclusive built environments, healthcare planning, and the emerging concept of human–robot cohabitation. Across hospitals, community facilities, and domestic settings, spatial design and health planning influence whether care environments promote dignity, resilience, and wellbeing, or reinforce dependency and exclusion. Effective planning therefore requires alignment between physical space, service models, and population needs.
Cohabitation is a particularly critical lens in the context of care robotics. Robots are not neutral machines: as they enter environments of vulnerability, they develop forms of agency, shape routines, influence human behaviour, and gradually reconfigure social norms. Coexistence becomes reciprocal: humans adapt to robots as much as robots adapt to humans. This process has direct implications for housing design, spatial organisation, ethics, and governance. By foregrounding cohabitation, this keynote advances an integrated, design-led agenda that positions architecture, health systems, and intelligent technologies as inseparable components of equitable and humane ageing futures.
