Location: Laurentian Main campus, room C-203

1.5 ConEd Learning Hours
1.5 AIA LU
10:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

This session presents a survey of projects introducing age- and dementia-friendly design that is functional and spiritually uplifting. The projects include a first-of-its-kind village-type dementia care facility, an age-friendly Japanese-inspired laneway house, and a biophilic seniors co-living project in a single-family house neighborhood. At their core, these projects aim to create environments that feel as natural as the aging process itself with a strong emphasis on creating nice connections between the people that live, work, and visit, to nature, and to the neighbourhood and surrounding community.

Learning Objectives
1. Learn about experiential and functional strategies for age- and dementia-friendly design implemented in both an institutional and residential setting.
2. Learn about design strategies that create the sense of the ‘everyday’ inside the institutional setting.
3. Learn about design and planning strategies for how to provide the necessary support infrastructure for naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) to allow people to age in the right place.
4. Learn about the regulatory and ideological challenges for creating better and right-fit affordable housing and care options for seniors.

Eitaro Hirota is an architect and researcher based in Vancouver. He is principal of Eitaro Hirota Architecture Inc. (EHA), and has more than 15 years of experience designing various forms of housing and commercial projects, with a specialization in seniors housing and age-friendly and dementia-friendly design. While at NSDA Architects, he was the lead architect for “The Village Langley,” a first-of-its kind dementia care community in Canada. Currently, he is engaged in several projects in Canada and the United States, including a multi-generational dementia-friendly community, a culturally sensitive care home for Japanese seniors, and a community-oriented campus of care for seniors. Eitaro is also actively engaged in the community with his research, and through lecturing and giving presentations, and volunteer work at places such as the Robert Nimi Nikkei Seniors Home, which is vital part of his creative process; to make honest spaces that are empathetic and create delight and enjoyment for the people using and inhabiting them.