In 2022 I got the opportunity to refresh a memory care unit in a Senior Living community. For me, the timing was perfect. Senior Living was a market sector I had no experience in, and I needed a new challenge. Up until that point, the bulk of my career had been designing market rate multi-family housing in the Seattle area. I’d just completed a successful midrise project near University Village and was ready to try something new.

Working on a Memory Care space was interesting to me for personal reasons as well. My grandmother lived with Alzheimer’s for ten years. Over the course of my adolescent and teen years I watched the progression of her condition from a plastic chair in the visiting area of her assisted living community. The environment was very pared down; more like a hospital than a home. During those visits, I felt like we were in the way of whatever the staff was trying to do with the other residents. In later years we would bypass the visiting area and walk the halls, not talking. My grandmother passed when I was 19 and was well taken care of until the end of her life.

Designing with empathy and intent

With this new project I knew I was out of my comfort zone, but I was excited to jump in. The first time I walked the space, our client discussed re-purposing an under-used meeting room into a living room. This renovation meant residents would have a space to sit with visitors away from the activity room where most residents gathered.

“Yes!” I thought. “This is exactly what I was wishing for years ago when I was a visiting family member.”

This reached all the way down into some of those forgotten experiences and I felt something inside me ignite. As a teenager, it was tough to pinpoint the unease of feeling like an intruder during my visits to see my grandma. I loved her, but I dreaded going to visit. In hindsight, a space where we could have privacy and community at the same time would have been so helpful.

Drawing on those experiences, I was able to design the spaces I wish I’d had during our long goodbye.

Our client came prepared with months of feedback gathered from the staff on what worked and what changes would make their jobs easier. These ranged from reconfiguring spaces to reduce distances between office and resident congregation areas, to providing residents more space through a new sunroom addition.

Rendering of the sunroom

When it came time for construction, we gathered the families of the residents together to talk about the changes we were making and how residents would be taken care of during the process. The consideration that went into phasing the work to reduce impact, educating the construction team on how best to interact with the residents, and anticipating potential challenges was extensive.

The old meeting room (left) is transformed into a cozy living space for residents and visitors to enjoy.

The forgotten meeting room became a cozy living room with a fireplace, vintage look lighting, elegant wallpaper, custom millwork, built-in bookcases, display cases for resident artwork, wingback chairs, and activity tables for crafts or card games.

We took the activity room from a classroom feel to a hospitality greatroom by changing out the functional fluorescent lighting with chandeliers, adding rustic beams, and creating a demonstration kitchen with residential aesthetic.

A residential-style demonstration kitchen is integrated into the greatroom.

We added storage wherever we could and increased the size of the medication room for staff. We brightened the corridors with paint, new carpet, updated lighting, and new lounge furniture upholstered in a luxe velvet dot fabric to give residents a spot to sit comfortably and watch the comings and goings of their fellow residents.

The old corridor (left) is transformed into a new greenhouse-inspired corridor with cozy furnishings.

Principles of designing for aging

This was the first project where I directly experienced the impact my work had on the quality of someone’s life. Senior housing serves a very specific demographic with explicit limitations, vulnerabilities and a decline of mobility and independence of its residents. Having stricter parameters to work with might seem limiting, but this challenge is one of the things I really like about senior living design. Knowing that every single resident will likely lose some degree of independence and mobility during their time in the community, we start with that as a baseline and prioritize bringing dignity to the experience in how we design. We’re paying attention to certain specifics:

• Lighting with higher light levels and standardizing on 3000K color temperature helps render colors and shapes more clearly for aging eyes that are less sensitive to changes in light.
• More saturated colors compensate for changes in color perception due to the thickening and yellowing of our lenses and deterioration in our aging retinal pigment layer.
• Flooring patterns can’t exacerbate the change we experience in depth perception as overall vision changes with age.
• Appropriate contrast on stairs, indicating a difference between the nosing and tread of a stair to ensure a more visually steady experience descending a staircase.
• Higher seat and arm heights of the chairs we recommend allow a person with limited mobility to get in and out independently.
• Cleanability of fabrics is taken into account with the understanding that as we age, our body functions will occasionally catch us off-guard.

We’re also thinking about the way the space feels to family members of the residents. Will they feel welcomed? Is it giving hospital or hospitality? For me, it’s about creating a beautiful and elegant environment where a resident can live comfortably regardless of their level of independence and be a place where they are proud to welcome visitors.

Designing within specific requirements that ensure dignity as we age isn’t just a duty – it’s a pleasure; my senior living clients are much more likely to take risks on bold color and, while it took some getting used to at first, being asked to refresh a space using the existing lime green as the anchor color is quite a lot of fun.

Where I’m meant to be

Fast forward three years later, now with over a dozen senior living projects of varying size in my portfolio as well as attending a few seminars on designing for seniors, I have learned a lot, closed some gaps in my knowledge and experience, and continue to be inspired daily.

Do I sometimes wish I were back designing high end apartments with luxury amenities in downtown Seattle? Never. As much as I loved that chapter of my career, design for seniors is my jam.