Laura Arpiainen

Laura Arpiainen

Laura Arpiainen

Professor | Health and Wellbeing Architecture | Aalto University

Integrated Diverse Living Solutions for Persons with Memory Decline

The presentation provides an overview of a 1.5 year consortium project in Finland that centers on finding solutions and strategies to promote social inclusion and independence for persons living with mild to moderate memory decline. The reliance on complex residential care is both societally problematic and financially unsustainable. Ms. Arpiainen’s presentation touches on the pros and cons of some recent trends of housing persons with dementia, and discusses examples and new ideas in the fields of architecture, interior design, urban design, renovations, smart technologies and more; all with the aim of making homes and built environments in general more memory friendly.


BIO

Laura is professor of Health and Wellbeing Architecture at Aalto University in Helsinki, where she leads the SOTERA research group that focuses on social and healthcare building. An architect by training, she is a long-term healthcare specialist with an international track record in all areas of healthcare including strategic planning and operationalizing of systems, service design, clinical planning and of course architecture and facility planning. Laura holds dual Finnish / Canadian citizenship and is particularly interested in diversity, integrated and holistic solutions for healthcare, residential care and assisted forms of housing, patient, family and community centered solutions, new definitions of wellbeing and the relationship of built environments to health. Laura is an optimist. She holds the simple belief that through education and collaboration we can create a better world for everyone.