ARC3020Y F
Instructor(s): Stephen Verderber
Meeting Section: L0101
Tuesday, 9:00am - 1:00pm, 2:00pm - 6:00pm

Long-term care (LTC) residences for the aged provide 24/7 support for people requiring a level of medical care that cannot be ideally met through home, hospital, or home-based community services. This residential care model includes nursing, dietary needs, environmental and maintenance supports as well as daily activities to foster social engagement and exercise. Many receive physical and occupational therapy, art and horticultural therapy to help recover from an illness or treat a chronic condition. Many offer memory care units for residents with dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease. The history of these care environments dates from the 17th century, when English settlers imported the European concept of the Almshouse to North America. The Almshouse had traditionally housed the destitute aged, orphans, and aged persons with mental disabilities. In time, ‘old age homes’ emerged as an alternative for housing the socio-economically ‘worthy’ aged. Following WWII, a distinct, quasi-hospital building type evolved; its exponential growth in numbers was largely due to having become a medically-based alternative to the conventional acute care hospital. In time, these warehouses for the aged became overcrowded and anti-hygienic, with a bedroom often housing four or more residents. In response, the assisted living industry arose in the 1980s as an alternative to this excessive institutionalism. At present, thousands of publicly as well as privately funded LTCs operate in Canada and the US. In the U.S. alone, more than 170,000 deaths have occurred, to date, in LTCs during COVID-19. Living conditions in LTCs were highly unsafe from an infection control perspective with some facilities experiencing fifty percent mortality rates.

The tragedy of COVID-19 in LTCs in Ontario (and beyond) is the subject of the Fall 2021 iteration of the Architecture + Health graduate design studio at the University of Toronto. This studio will explore the attainment of design excellence in the context of the following five dimensions of innovativeness:

• Aesthetic Vocabulary—Composition, massing, ambiance, visual imagery, scale in accords with an eco-humanist, therapeutically-based LTC residential setting that breathes.
• Deinstitutionalized Residential Realm(s)—The creation of home-like residentially-scaled spaces and immediate exterior environs that promote safety, maximize personal health status, foster dignity and self-empowerment.
• Nature/Landscape Engagement—Provision of multiple options for residents, staff, family and visitors to engage with nature indoors and outdoors through the concepts of biophilia and spatial theraserialization.
• Ecological Sustainability—Exploration of offsite-built modular systems for suitability in LTC contexts, and the efficacy of LEED and equivalent certifications in light of the unfortunate current condition where LEED-certification is not always correlated with design excellence.
• Direct Connectivity with Context—The ability of residents to feel part of a neighborhood and/or its larger community context, i.e. walkability, green spaces, transit, and so on.

The fall term studio project will provide a strong foundation for the thesis the following term. Each member of the Architecture + Health studio will receive tutorial support in developing a thesis prospectus—either as an extension of the fall term studio theme or on a topic/building type of your preference within the exciting, extremely timely conceptual global space of design for health. In the fall and winter terms, many external reviewers will contribute their expertise in design reviews. A group field trip may occur, subject to University of Toronto and international public health travel restrictions.