Designing age-in-place apartments meant focusing on the big picture
… and tiny details at an Aurora high-rise
In finding a match between a home and a life, the devil is always in the details. But when the little stuff is right, it lets you focus on the big stuff.
Those details, small as they are, can keep bad things from happening.
Thinking about adapting housing to an aging population’s needs has been part of architect Shekhar Bhushan’s life for nearly 30 years, since his first job. At Bella Vita, the redevelopment of the former city of Aurora office building at South Havana Street and East Florida Avenue that he worked on with Studio K2 Architects, those details go from floor to ceiling, literally.
The nuts and bolts of the project read like a list of what homeowners of any age can (and probably should) demand from housing and home improvement: Value, flexibility, and amenities.
The current generation of downsizing seniors is very different from that of 25 years ago, Bhushan said. They don’t want to be told when and where they’ll take their meals, or when and where they’ll access the services they might need in the future.
“They’ll tell you what they want, and you’ll provide it, or they’ll go elsewhere,” Bhushan said.
They also want connection, says the owner and developer of the building that was re-opened this summer.
“The biggest thing we’re trying to build there is a senior environment where people still feel like they’re part of the community,” said owner Dennis Witte of Omni Development Corp., a company that had never worked on senior housing before. Aurorans “can go to their same church and their same doctor,” and Omni consulted with a very active homeowners association in the neighborhood, one that has actually booked future meetings into Bella Vita’s common areas.
Omni bought the building about eight years ago. Then the commercial-space market in Aurora plummeted, and after a few close misses on bids for the building as office space, “we started thinking, ‘well, what else can we do with it?’ ” Witte said.
The high-rise structure gave it security, one of the qualities that the market research said prospective “55 and better” tenants for the 80-unit building prized.
Those tenants also prized a certain amount of independence. So there’s no meal service.
There’s a kitchenette and a coffee bar on the ground floor. There’s a wraparound deck on the third floor where residents can grill. But no balconies, because seniors said they didn’t use them.
The lobby, rather than being a cavernous, hotel-like space, is broken into more intimate seating areas, some around a two-sided fireplace, others clustered around a big flat-screen.
Bhushan (and Studio K2 Architects, the architect of record on the building) paid a huge amount of attention to lighting. “You don’t want shadows,” Bhushan said. “You don’t want glare. You want lots of indirect lighting.”
The reason: The aging eye reads harsh shadows and contrasts as hazards or changes in elevation, and the body reacts quicker than the mind can correct it. In the lobby rooms, there are four layers of light: ceiling can lights, suspended chandeliers, lamps on the end-tables and wall sconces. In hallways, there are three: Carefully shaded fluorescents, cans and wall sconces. Studio K2’s Geneva Kowalski said bulb choices and real glass or onyx shades helped the lighting feel warm.
In one of the smaller apartments’ bathrooms, there are two can lights plus a four-light fixture over the mirror. A kitchen in a larger unit has a full six-pack of can lights, evenly spaced across the ceiling. There are 86 units, in sizes ranging from one-bedroom to two-bedroom plus den. Monthly rent, which includes utilities and trash pickup, housekeeping and on-site concierge, range from $1,085 to $2,515.
Dennis Witte’s wife, Debbie, helped choose accessories that gave the models a vibrant but affordable feel, from stores that prospective tenants would find familiar: Pier 1, West Elm, even Target.
Each unit’s exterior doorway has its own package shelf, so that residents have a place to set a handbag, briefcase or bundle of mail while they fish out a key. And a light, so they can also see to find it. It’s a particularly empathetic touch.
After all, said Dennis Witte, 62: “I’m part of the group we’re marketing to. We want to stay active. We’re very willing to swim against the tides of time.”
by Susan Clotfelter