As we walk down the corridor, I’m holding my dad’s hand. I’m five years old and today my family is visiting my great-grandmother in her senior living community. In my faded memory, I remember Valentine garlands, doilies lining the corridors, and colorful decorations on each resident’s door. My siblings charge ahead, but I hold back and walk at a slower pace with my dad because I’m interested in what the other residents are doing.
I see that one gentleman, who is often alone, has people in his room and my heart jolts with happiness knowing that he has company. The momentum of excitement to see my great-grandmother builds and is like electricity running through my body. As we enter the doorway of her room and I see her smiling face, I let go of my dad’s hand and run to greet her. I feel the love of a close family bond that fills the room and my heart is full.
My great-grandmother’s long life ended shy of her 100th birthday. And though I didn’t know her very long or incredibly well, the time we did have was invaluable to me. She was the first senior that I knew. That fortune continued in my life as I had the chance to get to know the next generation of my family, my four grandparents. Each one of them shared stories from their unique paths, and, collectively, they taught me a variety of important lessons. For example, one grew up in Germany during the world wars and taught me the art of handmade crafts including crochet and gardening, inspiring me to always learn new things. Another was a businessman with the biggest personality who taught me to never stop working for what I believe in.
They all enriched my life and gave me tools to guide me on my own unique path when I left my home state of Texas to study interior design at Kansas State University. During that time my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s disease progressed and, in search of answers, I began studying gerontology. Through those studies I found a mission that I believed in and would bring me joy: designing environments for aging, and more specifically memory care environments.
My thesis focused on how the built environment can support a person aging in place with dementia as well as their caregivers. For my senior honor’s project, I used my hometown’s skilled nursing community (the same one where my great-grandmother lived) as a case study to see how an older K-Plan model with a centralized nursing station could be transformed into independent neighborhoods.
When the time came to job hunt after college, I found StudioSIX5 (Austin, Texas) and began my dream job of designing assisted living and memory care communities. My first project at StudioSIX5 was a five-building expansion for Presbyterian Village North in Dallas. After many years of hard work, the assisted living and memory care building was one of the first phases to be completed.
When I visited a few months later to complete another phase, I had the opportunity to walk through the residents’ neighborhoods, noticing their happiness in the space that I helped create. I took a moment to reflect on my design philosophy, my great-grandmother and grandparents, and what led me to that moment.
It had taken 20 years to get there, and although the setting was different, those same feelings of happiness and the electricity of excitement that I felt years ago were still there. My familial bond had evolved into a greater purpose, and I knew I had made the right choice.
