Senior Living: Housing Trends - March 2014

By Brian Hamilton

The oldest baby boomers, those born around 1946, are beginning to think about their housing needs in retirement. However, for many, the options will be limited. According to a survey called Boomers and Retirement by brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, the average boomer is about $500,000 short of what they believe they’ll need for a comfortable retirement, and 74% say they’ll have to depend heavily on Social Security for income.

So it’s likely that the senior housing industry will have to evolve and specialize to accommodate lower levels of income and higher numbers in need. Partly because of cost, many families will have to become more intimately involved in the care of their relatives, which can be a highly stressful activity. In addition, more effort will have to be made to help seniors adapt and take care of themselves longer.

While the larger continuum of care facilities, which often have every level of care on a single campus, still dominate the senior housing landscape, increasingly more specialized and smaller facilities are emerging to provide more options. In addition, the trend in design, whether in a large setting or small, is toward addressing the whole person, realizing that feelings and emotions, not just physical needs, have to be addressed. There’s more attention to color and light, connection to the outdoors, and socialization in a less institutional and more meaningful way.

“Small house programming and design principles are consistent, whether built as a freestanding structure or incorporated into a larger infrastructure,” according to LeadingAge, an organization dedicated to improving life for seniors. “Care delivered at a personal level, in a non-threatening, non-institutional setting that ‘looks, feels and acts like home,’ resonates well with residents, staff and family.”

The following case studies are keeping with these trends. The first involves the renovation of a dedicated occupational and physical therapy unit in Rockville, Maryland that uses the latest innovations to help seniors who have had physical setbacks learn to manage everyday tasks.

The second is about an unusual daycare facility in Rochester, New York specializing in care for memory loss patients. It provides socialization and activities for the patients in a warm, home environment and a break for their regular caregivers.

THE DEKELBOUM THERAPY CENTER
The Elsie and Marvin Dekelboum Theraby Center, part of the Charles E. Smith Life Communities in Rockville, Maryland, is a facility for occupational and rehabilitation services that’s open to everyone in the Rockville community. The building, constructed in 1967, served its patients well for more than 40 years before it was completely renovated in a $1.25 million project.

The 10,332 square foot building was remodeled to incorporate the latest trends and innovations in physical and occupational therapy, including fully interactive programs to help residents learn to navigate everyday life. The new design includes a Life Station, which helps patients practice range-of-motion activities like pulling food off grocery shelves and putting it into a cart, using common tools, cleaning and playing games, in a social setting with individual attention. Another area features an active daily living apartment, which incorporates a simulated kitchen, bedroom, laundry and bathroom, where residents can learn how to deal with routine tasks at home. Many who take advantage of these services have just started using a wheelchair.

There’s also a full complement of exercise equipment for physical therapy.

The design goal was to create a facility that supports and encourages the resident’s active participation in achieving a sense of well being emotionally, socially and physically. The renovation made greater use of natural light, along with brighter colors and materials and a more modern design.

“It was somewhat outdated and needed new life,” says senior designer Bethany Harris of THW Design in Atlanta. The space didn’t flow well, but just as importantly, it had too much of an institutional feel to it and wasn’t very inviting to either residents or the people who brought them there.

“It was very functional, but it didn’t necessarily have any visual impact,” Harris says. “One of the goals was to give it a different curb appeal. It had simplistic finishes, like wall tiles from the ’60s, and it needed to be brought up to industry standards of physical and occupational therapy. What that means now is that health and welfare are all encompassing, and it needs to be a place to make you feel better, and nourish the mind and spirit.”

The 4,600 square foot physical therapy space had been broken up into little areas, looking too much like a healthcare facility. The renovation involved opening up the space to make it flow, creating a feeling of movement by the interaction of the flooring, ceiling and furnishings. Walls were removed, and some interior glass partitions were installed.

“We did open it up and interjected a lot of color, playful shapes, unique forms and materials in an effort to create stimulus in space, energy and visual movement,” Harris says. “We used gentle, sweeping curves to break up the square feeling. The ceiling was dropped in six different planes, with a 6” shadow line mimicking what was on the floor. There were lots of planes interacting with one another.”

The original 12” VCT in the main area was replaced by a wood look Parterre Sports Floor, a 6’ sheet product in natural maple and oak colors. The darker oak color was used to create a serpentine design in the floor that imparted a feeling of movement through the long space, interplaying with a ceiling that featured large circles of lights. The serpentine shape is carried out in other aspects of the design, such as on a donor wall in the main lobby and a ceiling in an entry corridor. Much of the furniture is curved as well.

“We definitely wanted a no-wax, no-polish floor and something that could just be damp mopped,” Harris says of the Parterre product. “It’s a space that’s used the better part of the day, and there’s a lot of action on it.” That action includes lots of traffic from wheelchairs.

A kitchenette, originally in the middle of the space, was relocated to an area across the hall to create the active living apartment, where Harris specified a wood-look, glue-down luxury vinyl plank by LSI Healthcare.

The LSI product had a wider color range than other products, Harris says. “We were trying to make it feel like someone’s home, with a wider plank, warmer tone and wood grain variation.” Again, the flooring had to be able to take the abuse of wheel traffic and be easy to clean.

A mosaic porcelain tile from Interceramic called Glow was installed in the training bathroom.

Other areas of the main floor were also part of the renovation. In the main reception area, an LSI stone-look vinyl was used along with Mannington Commercial’s solution-dyed broadloom Canopy design, an Antron nylon 6,6 textured patterned loop. (The Canopy design resulted from Mannington’s tx:design challenge competition in 2009.) In addition, the lobby café also combined an LSI stone and wood pattern vinyl plank. The Mannington carpet was carried through the entry corridor. Harris says the entire entry area was a “play on shapes,” and the Mannington carpet played an integral part. There were plenty of circles and curves in the ceiling and furniture, while the Canopy carpet features organic forms with a geometric grid.

“This hint of natural shapes introduces a loose softness to the interior, providing a playful contrast to the flowing geometry of the curves and serpentine shapes,” Harris says. “This interaction of patterns creates an energy, which is further sustained by the floating planes, unique shapes and forms, accent colors and decorative surface materials throughout the space.”

Another Mannington coordinating broadloom style called Bark was used in the offices.

Harris says that although the project wasn’t on a tight budget, the final product was comfortable and not luxurious. “I think the bang for the buck and the visual impact we made with simple materials stretched the dollar far.”

CARPET AND VINYL STILL DOMINATE SENIOR HOUSING

The majority of senior housing facilities, from independent living through skilled nursing, predominantly use carpet and vinyl, and it’s likely to stay that way for quite a while. Some specialized areas, like fitness facilities, might have rubber flooring, and lobbies or offices might have wood or ceramic, but carpet and vinyl still carry the load.

A multitude of products are used in this area, but oddly enough, few manufacturers have products specifically developed for the senior living market. Often specifiers are forced to choose, for example, between a hospitality or healthcare flooring, or something else that might look more residential that has the right performance characteristics. Often it depends on what feel the owners want to give their facilities. Many prefer the look of a hotel, while others want a more home-like look.

Carpet tile is gaining more acceptance in the industry, especially in memory care units, because it can be replaced easily if, for example, an incontinent senior has an accident. Installation also requires less floor preparation. Tile works better than broadloom for wheel traffic, such as wheelchairs and carts. However, sometimes the look of tile can be too commercial, and some designers are leery of potential problems with spills getting into tile seams, so they continue to specify broadloom.

“It depends on the end use and clients and their maintenance needs and what their hot buttons are,” says designer and principal Tracey Filbeck of Studio F2 in Dallas, who notes that how a carpet is maintained is the determining factor in how long it will last. And maintenance in these facilities “is all over the board.” She says some new facilities are being built by investors to be sold in a few years, and they see maintenance differently from an organization that is in the business for the long haul.

Both sheet vinyl and luxury vinyl are used extensively, and often it comes down to a matter of budget, balancing look and quality.

In addition, the choice of flooring is often made largely as a marketing decision, creating a look to appeal to the families of potential residents, perhaps in competition with another facility in the same area.

MARIAN’S HOUSE
Memory loss can be one of the most difficult and tragic parts of aging, and it can affect the entire family. Often a senior with memory loss isn’t able to safely live alone, yet can still perform most daily functions of living with a little help. And that help is often provided by family members, who don’t want to institutionalize their relatives. But it can leave a caregiver exhausted, both physically and emotionally.

Marian’s House in Rochester, New York, part of the Jewish Senior Life organization, is just that—it’s a home in a residential neighborhood, close to the Jewish Senior Life campus, where caregivers who need a break from helping someone with Alzheimer’s disease or other memory problems can drop off their loved one in a safe and nurturing atmosphere for the day.

Marian’s House, built from the ground up for its intended purpose, has patients ages 55 to 92 who are in early to mid-stage dementia. They are generally physically able, although they tend to shuffle when they walk, which is one of the biggest factors in floorcovering selection.

The one-level home, a 5,300 square foot, Craftsman-style house, is geared for about ten patients per day who are cared for by one or two caregivers. That requires an open floor plan so the caregivers can keep their eyes on more than one area at a time. The patients do all kinds of programmed activities, including cooking, music therapy, art and gardening, among many others. They also get one-on-one attention.

“It’s interesting because this project straddles the residential and commercial boundaries,” says associate principal Laurie Butler from the Pittsburgh office of design firm Perkins Eastman. “You don’t want to talk down to residents yet you want them to feel comfortable.” The designers specified commercial carpet tile for its performance, but used fairly muted designs and colors.

The house includes an eat-in kitchen, dining room, living room, library, quiet den, two respite rooms (where seniors can spend the night, if necessary), as well as an office and caregivers’ apartment. And like a regular house, it has several different kinds of floorcoverings, including porcelain.

“One of the most important things is that different types of flooring meet with a smooth transition with no transition strips,” Butler says. That’s because the patients tend to shuffle and can trip easily if there are raised areas along the floor.

“That’s why we use vinyl plank instead of sheet vinyl, because it can more easily meet up with carpet tile and doesn’t need a transition strip. This is so much easier to do than it used to be.”

In terms of design, the flooring can’t have sharp contrasts or busy patterns, which can cause disorientation. In addition, glare can cause problems, so mesh shades help control the light.

The entry vestibule features Interface’s Superflor, which transitions into Vacant Beauty from Mohawk’s Lees, used in the living room, library and hallways. Lees’ City Fragments tile was installed in the quiet room and family room. Interface’s Plain Weave tile was used in the caregivers’ apartment and respite bedrooms.

In addition to creating easier transitions, all of the solution-dyed commercial carpet tile was chosen for its ease of maintenance. Tile can be swapped out easily by one of the caregivers and cleaned after the seniors leave for the day. In addition, solution-dyed products were chosen because “you never know what they’re going to clean things with,” Butler says.

The kitchen and dining room feature Armstrong’s luxury vinyl plank called Fruitwood Buckwheat, a medium colored wood-look flooring. Fused Birch from Mannington’s Amtico Collection luxury vinyl plank was used in the caregivers’ kitchen.

A Daltile mosaic tile was installed on the bathroom floors. The transition from the carpet tile to the bathroom is the only place where a small Schluter strip is used to create a level transition. Marazzi’s Campione Andretti porcelain was specified for the laundry room.

In addition, all the flooring was chosen because it was likely to last at least ten years, Butler says.

Print the Article