Design tactics for an urban-integrated dementia neighbourhood

Dementia is a degenerative disease that causes cognitive and behavioural impairments, forgetfulness, disorientation and decreased ability to fulfil autonomously day-to-day activities. When a person is diagnosed with dementia, the surrounding environment gains a crucial role for orientation, safety, comfort and well-being, as it can act as a prosthesis for lost capabilities, while enhancing the residual ones. It has been increasingly recognized that by adhering to acute care protocol, dementia care units have failed to utilize the environment to support the needs of residents with dementia. To provide a more tailored and person-centred care approach, able to resemble everyday life, a new care model emerged: dementia village. In this care model, the care institution is no longer just a building, but it becomes a confined small portion of a city, where residents with dementia live ‘a normal daily life’ within the safe, guarded and defined borders of the village. This paper presents a systematic review of the main design features of the existing dementia villages. The aim of this review is to highlight the potential strengths and limits of this architectural typology and care model. Thus, based on this examination, this paper illustrates a set of design tactics elaborated for the development of a pilot-study case: PIAZZA GRACE, one of the first examples of dementia village integrated in the urban environment (within the metropolitan area of Milan). Inside this Urban-Integrated Dementia Neighbourhood, the care environment is no longer confined within a guarded perimeter, but it overlaps and merges with an existing urban environment, enabling people with dementia to live together with the so-called ‘normally endowed’ citizens.