Name: How smart design can benefit senior living
Uploaded: 2026-03-14T16:47:28.000Z
Duration: 6 min 21 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I like to see when people are like, what do you do for work?

Welcome to the Pride, an affordable senior housing community in Boston.

A place for LGBTQ seniors and allies to age safely and in community.

Picture of me with Ellen DeGeneres, and you can see a window in every room.

census Bureau projects that for the first time in the United States, adults over the age of 65 will outnumber children under 18.

This left me wondering, where will we all live and who is designing those spaces?

There's the stigma on senior living as a place where you go to die.

But the places that we design are not that at all.

The design decisions that architects make dictate what a space can be.

Here are five qualities that make the Pride a cozy, accessible place for aging.

The Pride is in Hyde park, which is one of the several neighborhoods of Boston.

It is a building that houses 74 units of independent affordable housing and at the same time, a 10,000 square feet of community center that is open to our residents, but

also to the city and the community at large.

As principal architect of the Pride, Philippe Saad made use of an existing campus.

It was built over three decades, from 1902 to 1933.

You have the Hyde Park Library right there.

Last building on the left hand side is the Menino Art Center.

There's also a bowling alley over there and a very historic old ice cream shop.

So residents really have everything within a block, walking distance from their homes.

We couldn't find a site like this that is empty sitting to build a new building.

Also, historic schools have a lot of amenity spaces.

People have access to more amenities than regular affordable housing.

Having the natural daylight helps people live better.

Enter what Philippe calls everybody's living room, where the aim is to bring the outdoors inside.

My wife and I moved in a little over a year ago.

I'm the wife in question and I moved in with her.

In the Northeast, we live the majority of our days indoors.

We wanted a space that connects people to the outside, so.

It is so incredibly built for just this feeling of comfort with the windows, the fireplace.

People really have the capability to sit inside in the cold weather, but

also feel that they're part of the exterior.

And this can be helpful as People age and their mental faculties diminish.

A 2018 study found that being in a space with a lot of natural light, specifically within 3 meters of a window from 8 to 10am can reduce symptoms of depression in people living with dementia.

When it's nicer out, we look out to a garden.

There's residents getting exercise out here.

And I've noticed a lot of people in the studio or one bedroom apartments come down here and hang out.

They bring a book to read, they bring a newspaper and they stay for hours.

The ideal is to really have units that if you come in at 62 and you are a fully abled bodied person, you can live till either you pass on or you decide you want to move out of the building.

We worked to embed dementia friendly principles throughout the building.

But as the eye ages and our capability to recognize objects in the space starts to fade away, creating a contrast between two objects become an important cue.

It should always be contrasting between a toilet and its wall and a toilet and its floor or stairs.

We design the landing different color than the steps because we want people to be notified that there is a change in level.

There's always a contrast between a countertop and a cabinet underneath so people could see where the counter ends and the cabinet stop.

That's a fine line between creating a home, but

also fill it in with elements of longevity without falling into the trap of making it look like an institution or a hospital, because no one wants to live in an institution.

Care about you guys or should I come over here?

Community space for LGBTQ people is very important.

Sometimes we don't feel that conventional spaces are safe for us.

So the community center has become the beating heart of the community at large.

Researchers found a positive association between intergenerational interaction and many factors for older adults, including physical health, psychosocial health, cognitive function, social relationships and quality of life.

And I dream one day when senior living is intergenerational without even forcing it.

I'm hoping that we can really bring multiple generations together in a place that is meaningful and intentional.

Imagine a building for older adults and a building for families.

So as we create new neighborhoods and new cities and new environments, thinking about that connectivity, intergenerational relationships.

When you design a space for everyone, then everybody can use it.

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How smart design can benefit senior living

cognitive

mental

depression

force