January 1, 2002 |

Calloway Johnson Moore & West, PA, The Forest at Duke, Assisted Living Building

The Forest at Duke, Assisted Living Building – Durham, North Carolina
Calloway Johnson Moore & West, PA – Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Type of Facility/Setting: Assisted Living (within a CCRC)

Facility Contact: Leslie Jarema

Firm: Calloway Johnson Moore & West, PA, (336) 724-1503

Design Team: Alan L. Moore, AIA, Principal-in-Charge; J. Moore, AIA, Project Architect; Stephen E. Adams, PE, Structural Engineer; Gregory F. Mulholland, PE, Electrical Engineer (Calloway Johnson Moore & West, PA); David Sims, PE, Mechanical Engineer (David Sims & Associates)

Resident Capacity: 33

Space/Resident (sq. ft.): 1,381 (excludes Clinic and Office Space on third floor)

Total Area (sq. ft.): 45,578 (plus 11,746-third-floor Clinic and connectors)

Total Cost (excluding land): $10.5 million

Cost/Sq. Ft.: $183

Expected Completion: September 2004

This project consists of an addition and renovations to the healthcare center of a 10-year-old continuing care retirement community (CCRC). Approximately 80% of residents in the existing healthcare center suffer from some degree of dementia. Experiments in this community and in others have indicated that residents with dementia who are in environments with familiar features, compared with those in more institutional environments, exhibit fewer disruptive or dangerous behaviors.

Reducing these negative behaviors decreases the need for restraints or psycho-tropic drugs, and staff benefit from working in a less stressful environment. Therefore, a goal of this project is to create an environment that offers residents with dementia as many familiar features and “real-life” experiences as possible. For example, instead of living in a “unit,” each resident will live in a “home” with a front door and window opening onto a garden and a “street.”

The addition and renovations will create six “neighborhoods,” each designed to meet the needs of a specific resident population. The neighborhoods are connected by a “Main Street” with a spa/salon, a chapel, a town hall and other amenities. The interior street itself will be an extraordinary two-story space, with trees, benches, fountains, lampposts, and building fatades modeled after historic townhouses.

The design team has worked closely with regulatory agencies and has found creative solutions to code requirements. For example, the required corridor handrails are incorporated as porch railings and as ornamental fences around interior garden plots.

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