Author: Melissa Brady

Walkways: Re-Envisioning Long Term Care

Studio: ARCS 5301 – MArch 1 – Studio 1

Professors: Zachary Colbert and Suzanne Harris-Brandts 

Year: Fall 2020

Project Description

Walkways is a Long-term Care Facility that incorporates Covid-19 safety measures, while considering residents’ happiness. The facility is organized around a public garden that takes up the south-west corner of the lot, and this garden is a focal point with views from every room. In order to help keep residents active and healthy, a series of ramps connect the building from the basement to the 5th floor, with rest stops, planters for flowers and common areas located at various places along the route. The ramps would be enclosed during the winter to ensure that this activity is kept up by the residents. The public areas of the building are located on the ground floor and in the basement, with private functions on the 1st to 5th floors to ensure that floors can be quarantined in the case of a Covid-19 outbreak. Proper physical distancing of 2 metres is enforced in public areas, and each residents’ room incorporates a “visiting space”: a window wall sitting area that allows for interaction with the outside, in the case that a resident is quarantined to their room, or to use as a precaution.