LiveWell River Homes, Plantsville, Connecticut: 2025 EFA Design Showcase Award of Merit
Recognizing that individuals with dementia often face isolation and loss of independence, the LiveWell River Homes community in Plantsville, Conn., aims to bridge the gap between independent living and care-based settings with a supportive yet highly autonomous environment, fostering well-being through thoughtful design and programming.
Lauded by jurors as “challenging the status quo for memory care design,” the River Homes project, which opened in December 2023, resembles well-appointed New England cottages, blending seamlessly into the local residential architecture.
Each of the two homes offers a co-living arrangement with 15 private rooms, one studio, and two one-bedroom apartments. Further breaking from traditional senior living approaches, the community’s flexible living options allow spouses, interns, or volunteers to share the space, creating a vibrant, inclusive community. The project was submitted to the EFA Showcase by RLPS Architects (Lancaster, Pa.)
The residential model prioritizes quality of life by featuring all the comforts and scale of a traditional home, while activities such as meal service and social planning are part of daily living to help residents remain engaged based on their individual interests and preferences.
For example, the kitchen is fully functional to prepare and share meals, including an open-access beverage center with wine dispenser. Further contributing to the non-institutional environment are curated artwork, bespoke furnishings, and gas fireplaces rather than more traditional electric or steam alternatives.
A sense of autonomy is maintained through discreet yet effective safety features such as wireless monitoring and elevated indoor and outdoor living spaces, allowing residents to move freely throughout the day.
Community integration is also central to the design, with access to LiveWell’s Resilient Living Center, connecting residents to broader social networks and resources.
Here, Dustin Julius, partner, and Jessie Shappell, senior interior designer, RLPS, share insights on some of the defining features that earned the project the top Award of Merit in the 2025 Design Showcase.
Environments for Aging: Jurors celebrated this project and called it “an important new take on the project type.” What was the first step in approaching a new strategy for memory care?
Dustin Julius: Many projects begin as an evolution of projects that have come before. Here, instead of looking at architectural and care models that are trending throughout the industry, we sought inspiration elsewhere: a traditional New England cottage.
The idea of creating “home” was not conceived of as an overlay to make a care model feel homelike; rather we took the opposite approach, carefully layering in the code and operational requirements to create a space that was authentically a home, simply more robust in the support it is able to provide. It was this shift in perspective that permeated throughout the design process to focus on the experience of each resident.
EFA: In fact, a key directive was to prioritize resident quality of life, even over safety and operational efficiency. How did the project team push past industry norms to make that a priority?
Jessie Shappell: The design team was challenged to reconsider our standard approaches to dementia care and some of the stereotypical behaviors that are associated with someone living with dementia. A primary example of this is free access to the central kitchen and cooking appliances, or the resident units with kitchenettes and microwaves. The owner helped the team embrace the concept of self-sufficiency and free agency despite potential safety risks.
Julius: While the intention for the building was to focus on achieving an independent living model for supporting people living with dementia, we knew that in the eyes of the codes, the building would need to be licensed as Institutional Group I-1 occupancy, Condition 2 for assisted living.
This presented some challenges for creating smoke and fire separation between the resident bedrooms and the common living spaces. The team employed discrete Won-Doors that seamlessly recess into the trim work in the hallway and even incorporated a horizontal fire shutter that closes off the opening to above and below space between the first and second floors.
Another challenge was the elevator, which required an extended overrun above the roof’s eave line—a detail not common to residential construction. To disguise this element, the shaft was encased in stone and treated as a chimney element, which is common in New England architectural style.
EFA: How did the project team engage with people living with dementia and families to gather feedback, and how did that drive design decisions?
Julius: Long before the design team put pen to paper, we began engaging people living with dementia to understand their perspective in an authentic way. We conducted focus group sessions where responses from residents were coded as physical, operational, or personal in nature, using a series of color-coded sticky notes.
Either independently or assisted by their care partners, these responses were then determined to be either “filling” or “draining” to the seven domains of well-being (identity, connectedness, security, autonomy, meaning, growth, and joy), a concept that was born out of the work in Allen Power’s book Dementia Beyond Disease.
The nearly 2,000 coded responses created an immediate visual indication of the trends emerging from the responses.
One of the key paradoxes that emerged from these sessions was the need for security while maintaining and supporting autonomy. This tension evolved to become the new model that is River Homes.
It became clear as well that supporting this sense of connectedness and security formed the foundation for continued learning and growth. These individuals were also re-engaged throughout the design process to inform key decision making.
EFA: Looking at autonomy, what key elements of LiveWell River Homes deliver on that goal?
Julius: The River Homes project is one part of a holistic campus redevelopment at LiveWell; the other two components are skilled nursing support for people living with dementia and a Resilient Living Center, where people with early onset cognitive impairment can come and utilize the amenity spaces and programs.
Residents of the River Homes have unrestricted autonomy to meander over to the Resilient Living Center through a series of courtyard spaces. While these courtyards have carefully curated “implied boundaries,” they are not fully secured in the traditional sense.
Rather, the use of wearable devices allows care partners to check in on residents and monitor their whereabouts using geolocation. The infusion of this level of technology was the key to unlocking autonomy while maintaining a safe experience for each resident.
Shappell: The kitchens are another key example of providing residents with autonomy. The layout and configuration were carefully designed to function and look like a residential kitchen in a private home—just sized for 20 people.
It was important to the owner that the kitchen was inviting to encourage residents to be active participants in the food preparation and cooking process. Access to large residential refrigerators, a glass-door beverage refrigerator, and even a wine display offers residents the ability to help themselves instead of relying on caregivers to serve them—just as they would have done in their previous home.
Seating at the island, dining table, or adjacent sunroom offers residents a choice to be social or have a quiet moment by themselves.
EFA: The community allows a loved one to move in with a partner who is living with dementia. What was the biggest challenge in planning and designing the community to support this effort?
Julius: Several of the resident rooms were designed to be large enough to accommodate couples, and a few were appointed with kitchenettes or, in the case of the fourth-floor apartments, full-scale kitchens.
It was clear that if we wanted to provide spouses of a person living with dementia a space that they too can call home, we needed to support their ability to maintain their independence as well. We worked garage spaces into the lower level of the River Homes so that spouses can keep their vehicles under cover.
We also provided spaces that were familiar to them: the kitchen, great room, and four-season space as well as areas for respite such as the den located on the second floor. In the end, we realized that the wants and needs of these groups aren’t so different: all want to feel the safety, security, and autonomy of home.
EFA: Jurors were also impressed by how the project delivers a homelike setting. What inspired the overall interior design aesthetic?
Shappell: Creating a homelike setting that supports a sense of community and the enjoyment of music was the owner’s design vision from the project’s inception. Inspiration was taken from classical detailing and colors commonly found in surrounding coastal communities, while also following residential design trends such as matte black hardware that contrasts sharply with the light and airy interiors.
It was also important to the owner to create an entryway experience that feels like a grand home and not an institution. The scale and treatment of the vestibule, including a walk-off carpet that feels like an area rug, classic pendant lanterns, and space for a welcoming credenda and lamp, set the tone for the residential feeling throughout.
Adding to the residential feeling are the custom carpet designs throughout common areas, which look like traditional area rugs while providing a flush transition to bordering wood-look plank flooring.
Ceilings in communal spaces look like painted drywall but are actually an absorptive monolithic material that helps to dampen sound reverberation. Wood trim, doors, and cabinetry were carefully selected to provide an upscale residential look.
EFA: What’s something you learned on this project or a takeaway that you’d share with readers?
Shappell: This project really challenged RLPS to reconsider common design standards and considerations for people with dementia. Many of the “rules” that our firm has established over the years were broken.
This owner helped us to pursue a different approach to designing spaces for people requiring dementia care. We worked together to creatively carve a different path in design that supports LiveWell’s vision and mission, which focuses on dignity and the appreciation of this stage of life.
Julius: As with every project, we try to focus on the experience that the end user will have when dwelling in the spaces we design. However, this project took on new life as we dove deeply into the nuances of a person living with the earlier phases of cognitive impairment and the ways that even the smallest details can support their ability to live well.
This mission has reframed the status quo of focusing on caring for one’s disability to focus on supporting strength and autonomy.
Find more coverage of the 2025 EFA Design Showcase here.
Anne DiNardo is editor-in-chief of Environments for Aging and can be reached at [email protected].
