The 2025 Environments for Aging Conference + Expo, heads to Lexington, Ky., April 26-29, bringing three days of keynote and educational sessions for attendees.
Environments for Aging is previewing some of the upcoming educational sessions in a series of Q+As with speakers, sharing what they plan to discuss and key takeaways they’ll offer attendees.
Sunday, April 27, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Speakers: Amy Cheever, principal and executive director, Cuningham; Kristi Harris, associate, Cuningham; Lorraine G. Hiatt, environmental gerontologist, Planning, Research and Design for Aging, The Center for Health Design; Gaius Nelson, president, Nelson Tremain Partnership
As senior living communities aim to deliver inclusive environments that cater to older adults’ social, emotional, and neuro-diversities, they’re turning to trauma-informed design principles to help deliver on these goals. These strategies can help to alleviate residents’ stress and promote mental health by minimizing triggers and fostering positive experiences.
In this session, attendees will learn practical design solutions, hear about recent case studies, and partake in an interactive discussion.
Amy Cheever (Headshot credit: Courtesy of Cuningham)
Environments for Aging: Why is trauma-informed design an important strategy in senior living?
Amy Cheever: Statistically speaking, approximately 70 percent of adults in the U.S. have experienced a traumatic event at least once in their lifetime. By designing restorative environments, designers can influence spaces to provide present and future experiences that elicit positive social interactions on varying scales, promoting healthy aging.
Trauma-informed design acknowledges the full spectrum of human experience. It moves beyond basic accessibility and addresses psychological and emotional needs. This approach shifts senior environments from being merely functional to truly restorative—supporting healing, identity, and dignity.
Seniors deserve environments that help regulate stress, support sensory needs, and feel familiar even when memory fades.
Staff also experience secondary post-traumatic stress with the very nature of their job, so creating spaces that support caregiver, resident, and family well-being creates an environment for individuals to thrive.
Kristi Harris ((Headshot credit: Courtesy of Cuningham)
How have trauma-informed design trends evolved?
Kristi Harris: Five years ago, trauma-informed design was largely confined to behavioral health and specific therapeutic settings. Today, it’s moving into mainstream architecture—particularly in senior living, education, housing, and justice environments.
Why the shift? A broader recognition that trauma is not the exception, but a common thread in human experience.
Over the past five years, there’s been much more discussion and solutions presented publicly, especially heightened by the global pandemic and its effect on society. Leading up to the pandemic, treatment was widely accepted through multiple kinds of therapy such as talk therapy, group therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy.
The designed environment has had more attention and influence as another support to the efficacy of caring for those with mental health challenges. There has also been a cultural shift towards mental health awareness and destigmatization that has translated into new design expectations.
How have these changes impacted design strategies?
Harris: What started as “softened” environments—muted palettes, organic forms, calming artwork—has matured into design strategies rooted in neuroscience, psychology, and environmental behavior research.
Designers are increasingly working alongside clinicians and researchers to create spaces that actively support emotional regulation and sensory safety.
For people with sensory sensitivity, providing a calming transition experience between spaces can reduce stress and increase confidence when in social situations.
Varying seating is also key. Smaller seating areas provide space for more intimate gatherings while practicing safe distances. Larger seating areas encourage social interaction and opportunities for familial or community support.
Allowing space between landing zones or seating areas and a diverse selection of seating options, a resident gains confidence in their comfort level to find the best experience. By increasing their ability to choose, they are more likely to engage or be present more in the community.
What challenges are there to implementing these design principles and how can designers mitigate them?
Cheever: During the design process, it’s helpful to engage operators and residents early to address context-specific challenges, such as understanding the community’s demographics and culture and how best to design for their needs. What soothes or empowers one group may not work for another.
Features and functions that are supportive of trauma-informed design can be successfully reached when all are involved in the process. This involves asking questions such as: What is special here? Where do you feel like you belong? How would you like to see your culture and community celebrated? How can your living environment be more personalized? Where do you like to go to relax? What makes you feel safe?
Additionally, senior living communities are heavily regulated and risk averse. There’s an emphasis on fall prevention, elopement control, and infection mitigation—which can lead to institutional, sterile, or overly controlled spaces. But trauma-informed design asks for environments that empower choice and agency, especially for those with diminished control over their lives.
Designers can incorporate perceived choice within safe boundaries, such as through offering multiple seating zones, flexible lighting, personalizable elements, and clear visual cues. It’s about subtle empowerment: Spaces that say, “you still have a say here.”
How do you address the cost of these strategies on a project budget?
Cheever: Many of the trauma-informed design principles we address are also simply good design that meet many objectives for effective spaces. It’s more in the awareness of the principles and how to incorporate them into projects.
A few mitigation strategies for designers can include in their discussions with owner/operators are:
- Reframe trauma-informed design as cost-effective preventative care. A calming, intuitive space reduces resident agitation, falls, and staff burnout.
- Present return on investment in terms of reduced intervention, improved retention, and better resident outcomes.
- Use layered strategies: not every intervention needs to be high-cost to be high-impact.
What’s one takeaway you hope attendees learn from your session?
Harris: With empathy and understanding of trauma-informed design principles, senior living environments become more useful and restorative, improving the resident’s daily life.
Find updates and additional information on the 2025 EFA Conference + Expo here.
