Designing Assisted long term facilities to be more home-like environments whose main goal is healing, social interaction between the residents and smoothly transitioning from home to nursing home. The facility will also be acuity adaptable. This mean the rooms would have sufficient space and provision for equipment to accommodate any level of patient acuity. The Residential Health Center for seniors is a 60 unit facility in an urban environment. A main focus is it’s connection to nature and the community. Providing a continuum of care will provide a quality environment for seniors.

Goals:

Social Interaction
Communal spaces located within 10 feet of all residences.
A visual and architectural connection between the facility and the city as well as the city and the residents of the facility.

Intergenerational
Design spaces where the grandchildren of residents will be able to interact with their grandparents. Making spaces large enough for kids to play

Restorative Environment
Designing communal spaces and bedrooms in the facility to be home-like. All of the spaces within the facility have to have 3 aspects of “healing environments” in order to be considered restorative.

Making efficient use of space
Spaces that would usually be used for one specific function would get modified to serve more then one purpose

Steer away from the institutional feel of NH
By the use of materials and lighting techniques (artificial or natural) By Architectural moves, keeping the idea of the institutional facility but executing that in a more residential home type of design.

Outdoor Environments
Connecting the outdoors to the indoors, architecturally and visually, connecting the outdoor spaces into the communal areas