IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
EFA Immersive Experiences offer focused, high-impact learning opportunities on the opening day of the show, designed to deepen your understanding of senior living design. These add-on experiences include an immersive workshop or an exclusive community tour that provides real-world insight into design, operations, and resident experience. Some add-on experiences are limited in capacity. Both add-on experiences are available by advance registration.
Immersive Community Tour
Step inside a senior living community and experience design decisions in action. This guided tour offers behind-the-scenes access to spaces, materials, and operational strategies, with real-world context you can’t get in a classroom.
Photos courtesy of Sagewood.
T01 – A tour of Sagewood
A continuing care retirement community on 85 acres in North Phoenix
Monday, March 16, 2026
1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sagewood is an amenity-rich retirement community with approximately 417 independent living units, 78 skilled nursing beds, 44 assisted living apartments, and 30 memory care apartments. The tour will feature resort-style amenities, dining venues, common areas, meeting spaces, wellness/fitness, outdoor activities, and a large auditorium. The desert landscape and architecture will be featured throughout the tour.
Capacity: 100.
Learning Objectives:
- Analyze the architectural design in relation to the desert climate and landscape.
- Explore the Southwestern design principles and their relevance 15 years later.
- Reflect on emerging trends and the future of desert architectural design.
- Assess the current design and its impact on the culture of a senior living community.
Immersive Workshop
Dive deep into processes, materials, and methodologies shaping senior living environments today. This instructor-led workshop delivers practical insights, expert guidance, and actionable takeaways you can apply immediately, all in an interactive, focused setting.
W01 – An Experiential Approach to Materials Selection
Monday, March 16, 2026
2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Led by an interior design professor, this hands-on interactive workshop will allow participants to examine the performance criteria for furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) used within senior living projects. Participants will put materials samples to the test in a variety of scenarios to understand how best to specify products for a range of users, settings, and maintenance practices/standards. They will receive a box of samples to evaluate during this portion of the workshop.
Additionally, the workshop will help attendees develop a deeper understanding of how differently abled users engage with the built environment, fostering empathy in design and materials selection. Come ready to identify the range of abilities that must be considered within any senior living setting and how those abilities influence product procurement.
Come ready to identify the range of abilities that must be considered within any senior living setting and how those abilities influence product procurement. Formatted for both newcomers to the field, including students, and active professionals who would benefit from an update on current FF&E offerings, performance metrics, etc., this workshop will equip participants with immediately applicable strategies to incorporate into their design process.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the significance of experience- and application-based learning in design.
- Engage in empathy-based exercises to understand differently abled users’ experiences of the built environment.
- Actively evaluate FF&E performance criteria and characteristics.
- Analyze and evaluate empathy and performance characteristics as a component of experience-based learning that can be applied to the design process.
