Our physical design for Reed’s Crossing Senior Living reflects Hillsboro’s agrarian roots. Inspired by the surrounding mountains (especially a view of Mt Hood from the area) and organized around a ribbon of parks linked by pedestrian streets, Reed’s Crossing Senior Living brings amenities to the public along a beautiful green street. It also provides residents with many opportunities to connect with each other and their highly walkable neighborhood. This sense of rootedness is part of what makes this project so special. At its conceptual heart is the idea of connecting generations to each other; that families here, many of whom work at Intel or Nike, can live near their parents and grandparents who may have moved from out-of-state, or even just across town, to be closer to their grandkids. Besides the senior community, the Reed’s Crossing neighborhood will ultimately include development for school, multi- and single-family housing, and retail. Every generation of a family can live, play, and grow old here. Integration, too, is central to our vision. Connected by a pedestrian path is the next-door Reed’s Crossing Wellness Center, our integrated clinic/wellness center that brings to life a model of health care based on everyday behavior, as opposed to more acute clinical interventions. Senior residents can walk over to use the fitness pool here. Because residents and their families can gather in places shared with their neighbors—like the bocce ball court, walking paths around the site, a meditation labyrinth, outdoor eating areas—wellness at Reed’s Crossing is intrinsically tied to its community. Throughout Reed’s Crossing Senior Living, we wanted to reflect the region’s natural beauty, both in the building’s form and how we organized it. The building’s “urban farmhouse” roofline, a contemporary Pacific Northwest abstraction of the surrounding mountain shapes, is made of honest, straightforward materials. The sweeping, expansive upper portion, with its series of sheds and clad in light, fiber-cement paneling, mimics the peaks and valleys of a mountain range. This monolithic expression is softened by the single-story building, an approachable form inspired by the tree-lined foothills: Wood fins and a distinctive board and batten pattern face the main road, and cedar accents grace the building’s main entries. Whereas the outside of the building, with townhome porches and balconies, feels expressive and urban, its interior offers respite from the hustle and bustle—whether in more social amenities like dining areas, lounges, game rooms, and the theater, or in beautifully finished courtyards that open up to fresh air, sunlight, and plant life. Memory care is separate from assisted and independent living, both with their own courtyard; two loops of residential units with a courtyard are connected by a shared back-of-house spine. For us, Reed’s Crossing Senior Living was an engaging project developed with an owner/operator team who care just as much as we do about designing for healthy, rooted, active and fulfilling lives.

Reed’s Crossing Senior Living is designed around a shared back-of-house spine, including a commercial kitchen, that supports both the memory-care and assisted-living/independent-living wings. It’s a practical structure, giving residents easy access to shared amenities, and it prioritizes our biophilic design approach, giving residents beautiful views of the surrounding landscapes from sightlines throughout the whole building. Our expansive, refined interior spaces bring in generous natural light: windows facing the courtyard and the street sides make visible all the varied activities going on around visitors and residents while preserving their security. A soothing color palette connects the interior spaces to the outdoors, as do vibrant, organic patterns and materials—wallpaper with biophilic designs; leaf artwork at the reception desk and a wooden leaf panel in the dining room; walnut embellishments that tie into the building’s exterior; the natural-colored carpeting on each floor that serves as wayfinding. Experienced as a whole, all these elements unify the indoor and outdoor experiences and our dual urban/rural design concept. Critically, our holistic design approach proved its worth in more than just aesthetics. Early in our design for Reed’s Crossing Senior Living, we—like everyone else—faced a global pandemic event that affected nearly every aspect of life. How could our design, both processes and outcomes, adapt to circumstances we’d never anticipated? Multipurpose functionality became a central consideration. We adapted formerly single-purpose functions to accommodate pandemic restrictions: Game rooms on every floor, for example, can become safely isolated dining areas, telemedicine kiosks, or rooms for telehealth. Outdoor spaces can be used for family visits. To keep residents safer, we designed a larger, more friendly entry vestibule with an area for visitors to get their temperatures read and put on PPE, with equipment storage placed right at the entrance. The memory-care rooms, meant to be shared, were switched to all-private rooms that remained accessible to dining. We even designed separate HVAC air cycling than the rest of the building, should it become necessary to isolate segments of the memory-care area to slow or prevent infections, whether the 2019 novel coronavirus or next year’s seasonal influenza. Designing for operational flexibility meant designing for the future. Since the independent-living units meet code requirements for assisted living, with large bathrooms and kitchens, they can be converted to an assisted-living unit if and when that need arises. And by planning for temporary measures and storing or quickly deploying equipment, we kept the functionality of a healthcare facility without the feeling of a hospital. Each time we’re fortunate enough to work with the developer, Rembold, we learn more. On Reed’s Crossing Senior Living especially, we learned how our design can help senior communities operate more smoothly during pandemic events. More importantly, we learned more about prioritizing senior communities for residents’ wellbeing. Connecting all the dots, designing for physical safety and social connection and access to natural environments, can make all the difference in the world to someone’s health and happiness.