Environments for Aging - Spring 2015 - 38

EFA DESIGN SHOWCASE

Inside and out
Envelope-pushing interiors and community outreach efforts grabbed attention during this
year's EFA Design Showcase judging, but the jury's still out on whether operators and
designers are taking it far enough BY KRISTIN D. ZEIT

I

n comparing huge CCRCs with small
memory care communities, projects
with a couple of years' worth of
occupancy under their belts and those
that are still in the rendering stages, the
EFA Design Showcase jury is charged
with a challenging task. One question grounds the process to avoid any
apples-to-oranges traps, and that is: "In

"The interiors were a bright spot in
this year's competition," says juror CC
Andrews, president and chief strategist of
Quantum Age Collaborative (Cleveland).
"The aesthetics were really solid overall, and
there was a great deal of deference to the
specific demographic (lifestyle, region,
etc.) that spaces were being designed to
accommodate." Many of her fellow jurors

section that was fantastic, but that did not
pervade the building."
For Rob Simonetti, senior associate and
design director at SWBR Architects (Rochester, N.Y.), the strides made in independent
and assisted living-"we saw many beautiful,
refreshed interiors"-weren't as evident
within more healthcare-focused spaces.
"What we saw less of were new or refreshed

this particular project, how well does the
design support the goals of the owner
and enhance the quality of life for its
residents?"
Collectively, the entries in the year's
competition seemed to do a good job of
directly addressing this question, albeit
with varying degrees of success. And in
reviewing the projects that scored high
enough to be considered award contenders, the jury found some promising
common themes worth exploring-and
pushing even further-for future projects
of all shapes and sizes.

agreed. Adds Derek Perini, senior interior
designer at Bernardon (Kennett Square,
Pa.), "The years of Queen Anne-styled dining chairs with cabriole legs are gone. We're
seeing designs that are more universally
accepted and are appealing not only to
the seniors, but also to their children and
grandchildren."
Other jurors felt that while many of the
interiors felt fresher and more appealing,
there appeared to be some unfinished business. "Generally on the interiors, I thought
many of them very nice, but they didn't
have the whole building on equal ground,"
says John Stassi, administrator for All
Saints Hospice (Marksville, La.). While some
projects took pains to upgrade common areas, he says, "They left much to be desired
in the resident rooms, or the furniture just
didn't fit the plan. There was always one

spaces that were striving to critically improve
the environments for skilled and memory
care elders," he says.
Juror Lori Alford, chief operating officer of
Avanti Senior Living (The Woodlands, Texas),
is outspoken about risk-taking and questioning conventional wisdom when it comes
to senior preferences, and that goes for
interiors, as well. "In my experience, we have
learned that just because they're old doesn't
mean [residents] want to live in a community
that looks like their age. The senior population wants to be hip and cool, not boring,"
she says. "I think it's easy to say what
people don't personally like. But at
the end of the day, it's about the end
user (resident) and consumer
(adult child; female)-not
about what we think they
want. They want and
expect much more than
we currently give."

Interior motives
Interior design choices were a hot topic at
this year's in-person judging event, with
lively debates and strong opinions about
what's appropriate, what's not, and
why, perhaps, "appropriateness"
shouldn't even be a question.

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