PRE-CONFERENCE PROGRAM

2026 Pre-Conference Program

Community Tour

Community tours offer insight into innovations of senior living designs, and these walkthroughs provide real-life examples of incorporating best practice techniques, new enrichment opportunities, and designs focused on memory and dementia care.

T01 – Sagewood
Monday, March 16, 2026
1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

A tour of Sagewood, a continuing care retirement community on 85 acres in North Phoenix.  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. 

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.

Capacity: 100

Pre-Conference Workshop

Explore our information-rich pre-conference workshop, which provides an in-depth look at processes and procedures utilized across continuum of care, from CCRC design, to memory and dementia care design.

W01 – An Experiential Approach to Materials Selection
Monday, March 16, 2026
2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Led by two interior design professors, 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. Attendees will be provided with 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 to help foster 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.

Formatted for both newcomers to the field, including students, as well as 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 introduce to 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.