THE KEY | Clemen Yu

Hi everybody.

1. My talk is called “The Key.” My plan is for an adaptive reuse project in Providence for an Alzheimer's long-term care facility. The project is a key that opens opportunities for Alzheimer’s patients.

2. Alzheimer's disease affects 20 million people worldwide. More than 5 million Americans have the disease. Alzheimer's disease is ranked third, just behind heart disease and cancer, as a cause of death for older Americans. In Alzheimer's disease, the brain cells die, causing a steady decline in memory and mental function. It progresses over time from mild confusion to forgetting family and friends and it is irreversible.

3. Alzheimer’s ranges in severity from the first, or mildest stage, when it is just beginning to affect a person’s functioning, to the seventh and most severe stage, when the person must depend completely on others for basic activities of daily living. As you can see in the graph on the right, in most people with Alzheimer’s, symptoms first appear in their mid-60s and quickly decline in their mid-70s.

4. My site is the Narragansett Electric Company’s power plant on the Providence riverfront. It has qualified for Historic Place status. This is its brick facade. It is about 90 feet across and extends 400 feet in depth. It has high arch windows and four stories.

5. The original building was constructed in 1882. Narragansett Electric produced electricity for downtown Providence. The complex now includes several brick and granite, Georgian Revival-style structures, including the tall, brick, three-by-three-bay block (from 1924), the turbine house, built in 1925; and the boiler house, built in 1917. My design incorporates all of these structures. 6. Typical long-term care facilities are designed like prisons. The main point is to enclose the patients. This is a big problem.

7. My project concept is to make a long-term care facility that is porous, or open spatially, where patients and visitors can come and go. Patients can have physical activities inside and outside in nature. The facility will be located downtown—not in the suburbs—so patients can exercise their brains by attending lectures, community activities, and so on.

8. The project is not all porous. It balances independence with safety and security. (for example …)

9. The project also includes hospital and emergency care in the facility, bringing the three important needs of Alzheimer’s patients — independence, safety and security, and medical care — together in one place.

10. Each of these needs will be served on different floors. The first floor houses small villas inserted into the building for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s who can be more independent. The second is apartments that are more secure for people in severe stages. The third and fourth floors are for medical care.