Wellness
Auditing for wellness: a new way to assess environmental design
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet, director of Park Grove Design Ltd and host of The Third Age Design Podcast, discusses the recently launched Wellness Interior Design Audit
According to The Journal of Aging Research, older people tend to spend up to 72 per cent of their time inside. It is therefore important that building interiors be assessed against well-defined parameters for wellness – which have not been easy to obtain, until now. After a year of extensive research, and
having been reviewed by an advisory board of sector leaders including Dr. Hilary Dalke, Professor Emeritus-Kingston University UK, Dr. Paul Eshelman, Professor Emeritus- Cornell University US, and Jacqui Smith of Homesmith’s UK, we have launched our Wellness Interior Design Audit, or WIDA. The WIDA is broken into four segments:
1) Interior Environment; 2) Internal/ External Links; 3) Daily Life; and 4) Activities, with 145 questions in total, instant scoring, and a recommendations report when completed. Facilities can then take the audit a second time after
undertaking any of the recommendations for an updated score, underpinning their commitment to both resident and staff wellness. The Third Age Design podcast, (also
known as TAD), is now in its fifth year and enjoys listeners from 64 countries with international guests sharing best practice and research data from their countries, and some of this information has also found a place within the audit.
Internal Environment While sometimes confused with general health, wellness is brought about by a series of active decisions and individual resident choices which can be supported environmentally. In addition to supporting general physical health and comfort, an interior environment can be designed to facilitate intellectual, emotional, spiritual, environmental, and social growth.
The WIDA addresses many unique topics,
including ‘noneal’ compounds, which you will likely know as ‘old people smell’, and which has little to do with bathing. It is a natural hormone and part of aging against which mitigation steps can in fact be taken. In addition to the olfactory and auditory concerns addressed, much of the initial Internal Environment section of the audit addresses the layout of specific spaces and the importance of sight lines to exterior spaces and the often-overlooked importance of biophilia and biophilic design in spaces for older individuals. Why, for example, do we put a sofa with its back to a bay window and not the other way around? Large spaces may be required for
operators to facilitate group activities and special events, but residents generally prefer to spend time in a more homely environment. Room dividers, with open sight lines to staff are important, but must
February 2026
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com 21
sebra -
stock.adobe.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43
