If You Were Developing Senior Housing, What Would You Do?
Construction of Ecumen's Lakeshore Community Duluth
Would love your insights … If you were going to develop senior housing tomorrow, what would you want to be part of it? What would make you want to live there? Does it have technology? Is it on a college campus? Is your senior housing your own home? Is it intergenerational? Does it provide health care on site?
Throw everything and anything against the wall!
3 Comments
I would build in wireless and a touch screen pc so seniors will feel more connected with their family and friends but also to be used for safety like cameras or personal alert systems. Laura
We are just completing a senior community. We have focused on wellness. Our homes are a series of single story homes comprised of four 2-bedroom suites each- in order to give the community a feeling of single family rather than institutional. Each home has an active community area- and each community area has a different theme (physical, social, recreational, arts and crafts). We incorporate technologies to help the resident live more independently. We stress the concept of "aggressively independent" and try to provide the tools that allows the seniors to handle more of their own affairs when possible. Finally, we provide a concierge service to work with the residents to provide them with healthcare and other services when needed.
LTC...I would make sure every room has a view of woods & water ...whether natural or designed. I would build rooms in clusters with short hallways. I would put in skylights, screen porches, full kitchens attached to dining rooms, laundry room, pneumatic adjustable tables in dining rooms and activity rooms, sport courts outside and small gymnasiums inside, fitness rooms, dog-walking park, small theater, coffee shop/restuarant that would be open to the general public, activity room for woodworking & gardening, a variety of raised-accessible gardens, inter-generational programming to include transportation to local schools during day and evening hours to participate in volunteer and performance events...for starters.
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