If there was any doubt as to the role the built environment plays in safeguarding public health, it?s surely been erased by now. Over the last two years, Canadians from coast to coast witnessed the devastating effects of ill-considered design regulations and a lack of building intelligence in residential eldercare facilities. 
The state of long-term care today is a direct result of its troublesome history and perpetual marginalization in policy making, in mainstream healthcare, and certainly in design discourse.  
This is not to throw our profession under the proverbial bus; many if not most architects have shifted from a pathogenic thinking to a salutogenic thinking in long-term care, designing homes that privilege the privacy, dignity, and wellbeing of residents.   But these homes have also been tethered by a compliance mindset driven (in Ontario at least) by the systems and standards that have governed the design, development, and operations of long-term care homes since the late 90s.  
At Montgomery Sisam, we?ve always been at the forefront seniors supportive housing. Working with many of the most progressive thinkers and doers in the industry, our practice has been a proud partner to the quiet revolution in long-term care design.  
Now, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it behoves us to become not just passive allies but vocal advocates for more progressive, evidence-based models of care. One among many such model is small home.
Small Home concept develope...