Alternative Design
We want to help designers of space think like futurists so we can become makers of a better future.
Alternative Design
The Quad's Oldest Residents
What if aging wasn’t about slowing down, but about redefining oneself and embracing new opportunities? In this episode, we explore an innovative approach to campus design that brings generations together, creating vibrant communities where education inspires lifelong growth and self-discovery.
We talk with Alejandro Giraldo, Principal and Senior Living practice leader at Perkins Eastman, about a growing trend that’s quietly reshaping higher ed and senior living alike: older adults moving into student housing. As colleges face enrollment declines and empty dorms — and seniors seek more connected, enriching places to age — a new kind of community is emerging. One where dining halls, libraries, and lecture halls become shared spaces for lifelong learning and intergenerational exchange. Alejandro unpacks what it takes to design for this overlap, and why bringing seniors to campus might just breathe new life into both aging and academia.
https://www.perkinseastman.com/people/alejandro-giraldo/
Welcome to the Alternative Design Podcast, where we explore the power of foresight and design to create future-ready spaces. In each episode, we talk to diverse voices to discover the ways our world is changing and uncover insights that will influence the built environment of tomorrow. I'm your host, Kaylin Reed, an interior designer and certified futurist. And I want to help designers think like futurists so we can take actionable steps today to become makers of a better future. College campuses have always been about firsts. Your first time living away from home, your first all-nighter, your first big ideas about who you might become. But what if those firsts shared a hallway with someone's second act? Across the country, a small but growing number of universities are inviting seniors, not the graduating kind, to move in. It's a model that forces us to rethink where aging happens, where learning happens, and why those spaces have been so separate for so long. Our guest today, Alejandro Geraldo of Perkins Eastman, has been designing at the edge of that question, bringing together university leaders and senior living operators to imagine something entirely new. And what he's learned might just change the way we think about both retirement and higher ed. This is episode 36, our finale episode for season five, the quad's oldest residence.
SPEAKER_01:Just waiting and getting ready for the boomer generation to be part of the fabric of the single living communities. And what does that mean? Even understanding that the within generations, it's a multiplicity of different aspects of these generations that need to be taken in consideration.
SPEAKER_00:That's Alejandro. He's a principal and leads the senior living practice at Perkins Eastman. And what he's talking about is something that's been quietly reshaping both retirement living and higher education. We're seeing a growing number of seniors choosing to live on or near college campuses. Instead of the traditional retirement community, often separated from the hum and the energy of everyday life, they're moving into apartments where the neighbors are just as likely to be first-year undergrads as fellow retirees. And universities, they're building for it, designing senior housing alongside student housing, not as a charity project, but as a mutually beneficial relationship.
SPEAKER_01:Start looking for something else. They also see an opportunity for finding purpose in their lives in terms of what is that thing I'm going to do different than just living in a retirement community? But what else is there for me?
SPEAKER_00:It's not just about living near a coffee shop or a stadium. It's about access to lectures, libraries, and lifelong learning. It's about blending generations in ways that challenge our assumptions about both aging and education. And while the idea of multi-generational campus life might sound new.
SPEAKER_01:It's not a new topic, the senior lead communities within university campuses. There's several examples, but the difference, I think, is that there's a lot more open-minded generation, both in the student bodies, also the seniors. And there's a lot more commonalities that we're finding in addition to the practical ones. So this has been a very interesting opportunity for us to start connecting those generations and start looking into what it does it means to have a multi- or intergenerational community, where you can share certain elements of the existing campus and also bring this layer that is maybe a little unknown, but also finding those commonalities has been something that has been more clear than I think ever been because of the generation shift within the seniors and students.
SPEAKER_00:We're going to explore what's driving this shift, why it's happening now, and how it could redefine the future of both senior living and higher ed, and how we can design for both.
SPEAKER_01:We have seen a lot of different scenarios, and because it's not like there's one specific format that's going to fit everything. Yes, there are large colleges and campuses with a lot of land that can actually have maybe the community within, but not necessarily fully adjacent to the core of the campus. There's several examples of that, but also the proximity has been established by certain groups. Like if we are within a mile from the college, we still can create that affiliation with the college without having to be in campus. Because sometimes the campus doesn't have the land, or because it's an urban campus, we know much opportunity to for growth.
SPEAKER_00:What Alejandro is describing are the different ways that senior living and universities are coming together, from loosely affiliated partnerships to more deeply integrated campus communities. In other words, instead of duplicating facilities on a campus, a project like Mirabella at ASU leverages what's already there. Step outside your front door and you're in the middle of it. Students rushing to class, music drifts from the arts building, the smell of coffee from the student union. A morning might start at the Mona Plummer Aquatics Complex or the Sun Devil Fitness Center. Then you take a short walk to a woodworking class, or perhaps attend a lecture on existentialism. Your ASU Sun card opens the entire library system, makerspaces, archives, the kind of collections that you can get lost in for hours. Lunch might be in the dining commons, mentoring a student. The afternoon, an on-site performance by Mirabella's artists in residents. And the evenings, a Broadway show at Gamage Auditorium, a gallery opening at ASU Art Museum, or a workshop with faculty at the Center for Innovation in Healthy and Resilient Aging. Through it all, you're not just a resident, you are part of an intergenerational community where your experience is an asset, your curiosity is encouraged, and your days move to the rhythm of a campus that never stops learning.
SPEAKER_01:They have to be a lot more niche-driven, if you will. And so it's always a mix of trying to utilize the existing infrastructure of the universities in terms of complementing the program for the senior living community. And that obviously has a positive impact on the finances of the project.
SPEAKER_00:While Mirabella isn't a one-size-fits-all blueprint, Alejandro's point is that each project has to respond to the campus culture, the available resources, and the unique opportunities for connections between students and seniors. And those opportunities are shaped by two very powerful forces: a generation that's redefining what it means to retire, and a higher ed system, rethinking how it survives.
SPEAKER_01:So from 1946 to 64, there's a whole range of different segments within the boomers. So it's not that we can classify those in a single bucket. We know there's the oldest, the younger boomers, the middle age boomers. What we try to do is understand the different commonalities, but also what are those expectations that they have for what is that next phase in their life after their natural working life.
SPEAKER_00:So boomers as a generation are not a monolith. The oldest might be seeking more stability and care, while the youngest are still chasing adventure and that next big discovery. Their priorities, health, and lifestyle expectations can be wildly different. This reality invites us to rethink our aging populations with more nuance and what they truly need from the spaces we design.
SPEAKER_01:For us and the single living practice of freaking citizen is really critical to not just to do great buildings and great design, but to change the perception and the experience of aging as a whole.
SPEAKER_00:And part of that shift comes from a simple fact. We're living longer, not just a few years longer, but in some cases decades longer than previous generations. Which means retirement isn't a short chapter at the end of life. For many, it could be up to a third of their lifespan. Designing for that reality means creating spaces that can adapt as people's needs change. Places that are going to support active, independent living right now, but are ready to evolve into hubs for wellness, connection, and care over time. Spaces that don't just accommodate aging, they make it a vibrant, integrated part of community life. It's about seeing aging not as a slowdown, but as a stage of new discovery. The same way it is for a college student, stepping into the unknown and imagining what comes next.
SPEAKER_01:I think when you start exposing seniors and college students in environments like we're doing in these type projects, it's a discovery process for both of them. Maybe something that you never imagined in your life being a student you will think of. Once you get exposed to this and you start getting more involved with the residents and the seniors and the programs and the way they live, you start discovering things that were like, I had no idea, I didn't think this was so meaningful. And seniors are thinking, I'm going to live in my own apartment, I'm going to stay here forever, I'm going to age in place, I don't want to move in a community. And we have a strong proposition about you, you should be thinking about moving, not because, again, you want to move when you need to move into assisted living or memory care. You want to move into an independent, active, and engaging community where you can thrive and create your own tribe and your own group of people as you keep growing older. And suddenly you need more assistance and help, and you are in that environment already. So it's not like you have to do something, but how you really develop these communities in a way that people seize the value and start seeing the opportunity. And why do you want to move there again? Why do I want to be part of this? Is because I want to be. I can wait to be part of this rather than this is the last thing I want to do in my life.
SPEAKER_00:There's another layer to this. In 2023, the US Surgeon General issued a warning. Loneliness and social isolation are more than emotional states. They have very real, very measurable impacts on things like health, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, and dementia, and a higher likelihood of depression and anxiety. Older adults are particularly vulnerable, but so are young people, especially those in transitional periods of life, like those starting college. Which is why these intergenerational communities really matter. They don't just share space, they help close a gap that, if left unaddressed, can shorten lives and erode our sense of belonging. It's not only boomers who stand to benefit from this partnership. The other side of this equation is, of course, higher education, an industry that's being forced to rethink how it survives.
SPEAKER_01:The universities are looking for how can we monetize the land? It really is like we have land, we need to find some additional revenue. That's I'm gonna be honest, that's maybe the most natural reason for these groups to look for that. But that doesn't go to senior living alone. That they can think of, you know, what else can we do with our land? Is there any public infrastructure that can be developed here? Is there anything we can do with the city to bring some schools, or maybe we can bring a K-12, or we can maybe bring an auditorium? There's multiple opportunities.
SPEAKER_00:And those opportunities matter more than ever. Across the country, enrollment numbers are declining. A demographic shift that means fewer traditional college-age students and fewer tuition dollars to cover rising costs. Many schools are land rich but cash poor, sitting on acres that could be generating revenue.
SPEAKER_01:And they're looking for what is that thing that is complementary to our mission, our program, which is educating, no matter what the age is. And I think that's really what is start driving all these conversations.
SPEAKER_00:So here we are. On one side, senior living operators are facing a new kind of consumer, boomers redefining what retirement looks like, pushing for more flexibility, more purpose, and more connection. And on the other side, universities, some who are land rich but looking for ways to monetize and perhaps activate those acres in ways that align with their mission. Both groups are navigating a backdrop of major shifts, which include things like lifelong learning becoming the norm, more people working later in life, and a loneliness epidemic affecting young and old alike. And somewhere in the middle is an opportunity to bring them together. But how?
SPEAKER_01:Within our firm in Perkin System, we have several working groups in the civil practice area. And by our convergence opportunities and constant collaboration within the firm, we found some commonalities and some opportunities to reach out to certain groups. So we start getting those connections. We start even developing that internal conversation about what that means for us as practice areas. And the conversation has been incredibly exciting because there's a lot of things that our different groups don't know or talk about. And by doing this, having these internal dialogues, we're starting to see, well, where is the opportunity coming from? And so we're trying to connect the dots. We come in to talk to the person of the school and talk about bringing some development groups or maybe connecting them with the right marketing research group because it's not the typical research group you need. You need a senior living research group to come in and do a true analysis. It's not a real estate, how much my land is valued. Is do you really have the depth of the market to bring this type of community here? And we believe that's part of what we bring to the table is that knowledge of the partners and how we help the client also understand and assemble the team for such a specific project.
SPEAKER_00:When we talk about senior living on a university campus, it's tempting to think of it as an unusual mashup, two completely different worlds being stitched together. But in reality, it's a preview of where design is headed. Because care isn't confined to a hospital. It's not even confined to a dedicated healthcare building in some cases. Care is increasingly happening everywhere, in libraries, in dining halls, in performing art centers, on sidewalks between classes. And as our populations live longer and expect more from the places that they inhabit on a day-to-day basis, we'll need to be fluent in designing care into environments that were never labeled really health care at all. That means bringing the right experts into the room early. Not just architects and interior designers, but think operators, healthcare specialists, doctors, university leaders, even marketing researchers who understand the depth of the senior living market. And it means questioning the status quo of who can share space and why. And then assembling the team is really just the start. Alejandro says the real work, the work that determines whether a project succeeds, begins before a single wall is drawn.
SPEAKER_01:I think it starts with the programming and programming at a massive planning level. When you start looking into how or where, what's the program for this, just looking into the campus specific. Let's say for a moment we're gonna look into an existing campus that has existing infrastructure. So is there a better place within the campus that this community will be placed? It's not just the, oh, we have an empty building somewhere, do it there. No, it's the that that's maybe the first thought. But now, how about is this has some proximity with a community center or is that proximity with certain amenities? Uh, do we have proximity with the some dining venues? Or so just looking into from a programming high level, just a looking into what is that right location for this project and what's the right scale.
SPEAKER_00:From that high-level vision, the work zooms in. And here's where it challenges us as designers to really stretch our own definitions of what a project is supposed to be. Because even if these places don't look or feel like a hospital, elements of healthcare design have to be there. Spaces for assisted living or memory care, wellness amenities, staff support areas, safety measures, all integrated into a setting that's also a home, a hub of learning, and really a bridge between two generations. It's a balancing act. And it forces us to think differently about things like adjacency and shared circulation, the kinds of spaces where moments of connection and care can happen naturally.
SPEAKER_01:So it goes from location, from a master planning or large vision at some point to specific programming. So then you go to the specific components of the single living community, and those are independent living, assisted leading, memory care, and skilled nursing. And as the discussions progress, we start looking into are you willing to tell someone that moved here at 75 as an independent living resident in 10 years from now that it's going to require some assistance? You are you telling him it has to go somewhere else rather than staying here where he wants to live? And so that's a click in some thinking process and leadership in schools that you're right. I mean, we don't want to do operate that. We can't. We don't know, we don't have the skill sets to operate assisted living operation or memory care. But we understand the importance of the continuum of care as part of this project within the campus. Our proposition for the most part is to bring at a minimum the assistant and independent assistant and memory in certain percentages, very small percentages for assisted and memory, but also to provide that continuum of care.
SPEAKER_00:Of course, the conversation isn't only about where people live or the services they'll need. It's also about how those spaces feel. And that's where the details matter. Design in this context has to do much more than meet code. It has to communicate dignity and safety and belonging without ever feeling clinical. In a place where 20-year-olds and 80-year-olds might be sharing the same hallway, the environment has to do double duty. It has to work for both. It has to have cues and comforts that are often invisible to the untrained eye.
SPEAKER_01:It's not aesthetics because it's hospitality, but it's about the aging eye. So contrasting finishes, sleep resistance in certain materials. That applies for any age. But you put an attention to the fabric in the furniture, the carpet patterns, the lighting, the wayfinding opportunities is different than the wayfinding for a 20-year-old than it is for a 75, 80-year-old. How you combine those design elements across the community and the school and those common spaces to make sure that you're addressing both needs. But the key aspect of this is how you create that seamless integration. In other words, no one wants this to look as an institutional environment, meaning, think about grab bars and all these different things that we Think about all the time in senior limit residential. That's no different here. We're trying to make sure that all these accessible and safe orientation devices and elements are part of the theme and part of the design of the space. So they are seamlessly integrated, but at the same time, they're responding to the needs of both generations. And normally when you respond to the generation of the seniors, for sure, 99% of the time is going to be responding to the needs of the rest of the population.
SPEAKER_00:Partnerships are easy to romanticize in the design phase. The vision is big, the renderings are beautiful, and everyone is nodding in agreement. Because here, two very different worlds are coming together. Universities and senior living operators each bring strengths and blind spots to the project. And it really requires a level of clarity and commitment that most projects never demand.
SPEAKER_01:How are we combining some strategies and design to make sure that we are operating these environments properly? And again, it's an unknown for many organizations on how to do it because senior living developers are not operators that don't do schools or you know education, vice versa. So for them to have a very clear understanding of what the drivers for the project are and what is the commitments that each organization has to have. It's not just like I give you the site, do your thing. That is an absolute recipe for disaster in an URC project. We have to have the commitment from both the school in terms of programming interaction in the long-term commitment, and same with the senior living operator.
SPEAKER_00:And even with that commitment in place, there's a truth Alejandro doesn't shy away from. This is still uncharted territory. No one has a perfect playbook for making it work, which means you're gonna have to try and fail and adjust and try again.
SPEAKER_01:It's a test in many cases because a lot of these things are not proven. So you have to go through a trial and error in some cases, and that is not easy. But the commitment again is there, and I think the support and the excitement is out there for that. And so I think people definitely start seeing the value of different typologies and ideas about aging, retiring, and finding a way to wake up every morning, you know, having a reason to be excited about your day and your future, no matter what how old you are.
SPEAKER_00:What's on the table here is bigger than blending two building typologies. It's a provocation to question why we separate generations at all. Why do we assume that the places where we learn and the places where we age can't be one and the same? Projects like these force us to work in new coalitions: healthcare planners next to campus architects, senior living operators next to student life directors, and they force us to ask better questions. Who else can belong here? What else could this space do? The answers will look different on every campus, but the challenge is the same. To design spaces where learning never stops and where aging doesn't mean moving to the margins. Thanks so much to Alejandro for being our guests on today's show. For more information about Perkins Eastman and the great work they're doing, check out our show notes. This episode was produced by myself and Andrew Reed, with original scoring and audio production done by Andrew Reed. Alternative Design is brought to you by Campbell International. Thanks for listening.