The major demographic shift taking place as the boomer generation transitions into its retirement years has been well documented. The shift itself was expected, but what wasn’t anticipated is the significant impact boomers are having on the senior housing market in the United States.
Never ones to conform to the traditional and established way of doing things, boomers are making demands that are redefining housing typologies, and even inspiring the creation of new ones. Those tasked with developing and creating new communities across the country are counting on this generation to fully embrace the models being brought to bear. There are many challenges to achieving that, though, requiring an approach much more advanced than the notion of “if you build it, they will come.”
These challenges arise from the boomers’ strong desire for a multitude of housing features and choices.
But with the right design solutions in place, senior living communities will be better positioned to attract this much-desired generation.
Socialization
Socialization is the most important advantage that a senior living community has over aging-in-place options and is a feature that resonates across the 18-year range of individuals who compose the boomer generation. There are so many opportunities that can be created within a community for both active and passive encounters between residents. In addition, these can be organized on an individual, group, or community basis, while opportunities for impromptu socialization can be made available, as well.
A successful design for socialization will create spaces that meet two important design criteria: welcome interaction and flexibility. In order to accomplish the first, it’s important to design a community with a linear circulation spine and adjacent active socialization spaces. Active spaces might include areas for art, sewing, crafts, woodworking, music, or exercise. This approach makes it easy to welcome passersby to join an activity.
By aligning active spaces along the building spine, communities can achieve flexibility by allowing the capacity of rooms to expand and contract based on need. Additionally, opportunities for active socialization can flow out of these spaces and into the main circulation spine. For more passive socialization zones, adjacent spaces, perhaps sited as a “second row” behind the main socialization rooms, might be added—still accessible from that circulation route via off-shooting corridors but a bit further removed from the activity. This provides more privacy to areas such as reading rooms, libraries, meditation areas/chapels, and offices.
Dining options
Boomers have developed a high standard for food and the dining experience, with many of their social and family lives centered on enjoying meals together. As such, new environments are being introduced to answer a range of needs. Programming options include well-equipped kitchens in living units, a community dining room, short-order prep/to-go options, a cooking demonstration space, and special occasion venues. To accommodate all of this, flexibility comes into play again.
Within the living unit, an open kitchen/dining space should be able to function well for a one- or two-person meal and also accommodate visiting family members. Dining rooms in the resident building and throughout the community should be multipurpose in nature to support a variety of functions.
It’s also beneficial to group similar areas together, such as the short-order prep and cooking demonstration areas, while code requirements will mandate responses to features like hoods above cooking surfaces and the control of food odors.
Living unit and community amenities
To understand the drivers behind boomers’ expectations for living unit amenities, one only has to look at the residential homes they’re occupying today. A desire for comfort and convenience rank high, so the inclusion of these types of elements in senior living communities will attract this cohort. This will go far in attracting boomers to living spaces first, and then to the remainder of the community.
One challenging aspect of this approach is how quickly available products evolve thanks both to technology and design improvements, so it’s important for owners and developers to allow for as much future change as possible. One primary product to consider is furniture. Furniture manufacturers continue to advance designs for function, size, portability, and aesthetics.
To plan for this, flooring should avoid thresholds and transition strips as much as possible. In addition, wider paths of travel should be provided to allow for all types of furniture, both movable and fixed.
Specific details to consider will vary depending on the individual, but there are some commonalities in boomers’ wants and needs. For example, consider offering nearby covered parking, eliminating curbs at entries, installing automatic entry doors, and providing clear paths of travel to living units—details that weren’t prevalent in nursing homes of old but that this new generation will expect.
Offering options for customization and personalization is meaningful, too. This would include items such as individual resident lockers for receipt of delivered dry cleaning, groceries, packages, and mail.
Technology is key, too, with best practices including providing multiple charging stations for cell phones and mobile devices as well as plenty of outlets for computers and printers. Other expected conveniences include designated art hanging areas, wider doors, extra windows for natural light, automatic lighting controls, automatic window shades, and additional storage rooms on the living unit floors.
Multigenerational communities
A unique characteristic of the boomer generation is that despite the fact that they are, indeed, aging, they don’t feel old and don’t want anything to do with being perceived as old. They’re defining what an aging person can do and how they do it, as well as how they think and behave. They will clearly state that they don’t want to age like their parents did.
Those who develop and design senior living communities must answer this need and create spaces that don’t make boomers feel old. There are a number of ways this can be accomplished, and most involve a more comprehensive look at urban planning than what’s been done in the past. Many models that opened within the last five years or so involve self-contained communities located on a greenfield site— islands unto themselves.
The design response going forward, however, should include a much broader view and incorporate two or three different housing typologies on the same campus. These might include any combination of singles or the newly married, families with children, and empty nesters alongside assisted living, memory care, rehabilitation care, etc.
Yet another approach that would respond to the desires of boomers is the gentrification model that integrates senior communities and individual housing back into older and existing neighborhoods. This can be achieved through the careful and thoughtful addition of new builds in areas where obsolete buildings might be demolished or by renovating existing homes and buildings.
Another interesting and important new trend just beginning to evolve includes clusters or cottages where a small group of boomers decide to live together communally. Simply stated, the more multigenerational and diverse the senior communities of the future are, the more successful they’re going to be.
Stay in touch
These are just some of the drivers influencing boomer’s housing decisions; however, these, too, will evolve over time. It’s important for all of those involved in the planning and design of senior living communities to stay in touch with the boomer generation and its expectations. It’s also important to remember that 18-year age range of boomers, too, a span influencing the likelihood that younger boomers will have slightly different drivers and desires than their predecessors.
In order to best respond moving forward, designing and building for today’s boomer generation must include as much flexibility as possible, supporting the evolution of this typology for many years to come.
Gary L. Vance, FAIA, FACHA, LEED AP, is an architect and planner and president of Vance Consulting (Indianapolis). He can be reached at [email protected].
