The LiveWell team had a vision to create a unique, co-living dementia care model centered on creating a home-like environment for residents living with cognitive decline.
To get there, the company embarked on a multi-year journey to create a new option for people to live their lives to the fullest while seamlessly incorporating resident safety features and operational efficiencies for staff.
This residential, co-living model relies on unique design safety features, the incorporation of shared spaces and extensive natural light to improve the quality of life for residents.
For these reasons, the LiveWell River Homes project took the top spot in the Standalone Memory Care category in the 2024 Senior Housing News Architecture and Design Awards.
The concept
Planning for the new River Homes concept started in 2016 and grew into a collaborative process that included families of prospective residents giving input through focus group sessions.
Focus groups repeatedly said they desired a sense of home and comfort rather than an institutionalized setting, and that was central to guiding the project’s overall design.
“We wanted to promote an environment that was built around supporting people to live well and we talked about needing to create a space that helped people living with us to have a sense of identity and connectivity,” said LiveWell President and CEO Michael Smith.
Planners worked to create something that was “the size of someone’s house” while also adding spaces like a kitchen, parlor, library, living room and outdoor porch access.
“We really looked at stripping out the things that felt institutional and put everything in a way that really felt residential,” Smith said. “Those living with cognitive change are desiring normalcy.”
The 43,000 square-foot River Homes concept includes 15-private rooms along with two, one-bedroom apartments and one studio space. Each room is designed with flexibility in mind to accommodate a family support person or staff members to live on the premises.
The community’s unique design is intended to invoke the feeling of cottage life in New England, with natural light, outdoor balcony spaces and connectivity in mind to improve the overall wellbeing of residents.
Due to the high-acuity nature of providing dementia care, project planners often dealt with opposing design elements, balancing the need for security and the need for each resident to have their own autonomy.
“We wanted to provide a space where people were safe but we didn’t want that to be a limiting factor,” said RLPS Designer Dustin Julius.
A series of folding partitions are hidden in a support column to protect against the threat of a fire, and the homes were built on a larger LiveWell senior living campus. This rethinks security of dementia care residences by relying on passive monitoring, along with visual queues and orientation of the surrounding buildings. Residents at the River Homes also have access to wearable devices.
This concept of creating home-like environments and minimally-invasive security, along with removing the feeling of the homes having an institutional feel, were the two biggest challenges the project faced.
“We were able to strategically locate the buildings in such a way that the exterior spaces that were created were as equally as important as the interior spaces,” Julius added. “We were pushing the boundary in every way.”
Two additional units were added onto the project’s original design, which changed the project’s scope and allowed for additional revenue generation from the additions.
While not working on a large-scale building design, the team had to focus on still maintaining accessibility features needed to support older adults with mobility challenges—wtih Smith noting the LiveWell and RLPS teams had to “get creative” to work within the confines of the site.
“This project is all about bringing back normalcy and having autonomy in your life and you should be given resources to help you with the problems that you have, not trying to manage it through this institutional concept,” Smith said.
RLPS served as the architect, with interior design provided by RLPS Interiors and Direct Supply Aptura and built by the C.E. Floyd Company.
The construction
Construction at the senior living campus started in 2022 and work was completed in 2023 on the River Homes, with the surrounding campus to be completed in April of this year, Smith said.
The high-end, modern interior spaces combine luxury design and functional amenities through an open-concept layout with a neutral color palette with large pendant lights and black metal accents.
Kitchen countertops of marble and quartz revolve around an island with a mixed seating in the dining area. Each one of the homes includes a kitchen and dining space on the first floor and leads to a four-season room and a great room.
Residents can spend time at the upstairs parlor and library space with direct access to a large deck with surrounding nature and views of a nearby river.
Situated nearby is the LiveWell Resilient Living Center, a large community space for people who live on campus and people from the surrounding Plantsville, Connecticut area can participate in programming to support brain health. The space also includes physician offices and areas for cooking and a cafe.
The River Homes construction and the overall campus build includes a budget of over $50 million.
The completion
The first River Homes welcomed residents in early 2023, with residents celebrating the occasion with a family-style dinner with loved ones and staff from LiveWell. The last section of River Homes opened in late 2024.
SHN Architecture and Design Awards Judge Tom Levi called the project “an excellent design” with “all the right parts” to create a “homelike feel.” Architecture and Design Awards Judge John Thatch added that the LiveWell concept was representative of a “very, very thorough upscale memory care community.”
The LiveWell team points to the project’s ability to create a true sense of home, Smith said, as evidence to the River Homes’ overall success.
“People are getting their autonomy back and it’s amazing to see people progress,” Smith said. “We described our objectives to create normal staff immediately, and were so welcoming in how that would happen.”
“When you sit in that space and you can forecast the experience that these residents are having, we know that it will have an impact on the lives of the people who live here,” Julius said. “A marker of success for this project is being able to create an experience that feels like home.”
