Third Chapter Curious - Spotlight Interview - Segment 4: “Rethinking the Architecture of Aging” with Andrew Carle

The systems surrounding aging tend to prioritize control over continuity, where choice is reduced, and movement is directed. Independence may remain a stated goal, but it often becomes secondary to convenience.

Andrew Carle has built his career in opposition to that pattern. His early work in rehabilitation focused on restoring function while reinforcing autonomy; a perspective that carried into senior living, where he has contested the idea that age should determine the terms of daily life. His work centers on environments that support self-direction and preserve engagement at every level.

Through the development of University Retirement Communities (URCs™), Carle challenges the structural separation that defines much of the field. Rather than isolating older adults, these models place them within active, intellectually engaged, intergenerational settings. The shift redefines what later life can look like when it remains connected to the broader world.

In this conversation, Carle reflects on the assumptions that continue to shape senior living and the consequences of leaving them unexamined. Instead of wondering how to manage aging more effectively, we ask whether the environments we build allow life to continue with depth, agency, and presence.

INTERVIEWER: 

Much of the built environment is designed for efficiency, movement, and optimization. How does that framework conflict with the lived rhythms of aging?

CARLE: 

I think it's just a matter of modifying to maintain that same goal: efficiency, movement, and optimization. Though I've always felt that Universal Design for individuals who are older or require some level of accommodation is just better design in many ways. A unique difference with University Retirement Communities (URCs) is their ability to expand the environment beyond the senior living community to fully accessible, designed college campuses.

INTERVIEWER:

When you look back at your early work in senior living, what assumptions did you hold then that you’ve let go of over time?

CARLE:

To be honest, from my first entry into the sector, I have fought back against the idea that there are limitations to what someone can do simply based on age. This was largely drawn from my experience before senior living as a rehabilitation hospital executive, where the focus was always on maximizing function for individuals who had incurred spinal cord or brain injury, amputation, or the effects of a stroke. I published an article early on calling for a focus on "Functional Assisted Living," i.e., the idea that instead of doing everything for residents via the hospitality model, we encouraged continued participation and engagement in directing their own lives, whether doing their own laundry, or simply getting their own cup of coffee or newspaper from the lobby. I applied the same maximize function approach to designing memory care space; a focus on design that would allow residents with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia (ADRD) to self-locate, self-direct, and self-engage within "Safe, Therapeutic, and Wayfinding" environments. I was very honored when my renovation and expansion design for the Memory Care services of The Virginian Senior Living Community won the National Gold Medal in the 2022 Environments for Aging competition from among all categories of senior living design.

I'm proud to have pushed the use of technology, what I coined as "Nana" Technology, for older adults, including working with companies as diverse as Apple and Nintendo to push for applications of technology to older adults. I also co-invented the first GPS shoe to track up to 60% of individuals with ADRD who become involved in a critical wandering incident each year, and the use of hand-motion, science-based video games for residents with ADRD. Finally, pushing and utilizing robotics to address critical staffing issues in senior living, including robotic vacuum cleaners for the hallways, and food and tray delivery robots in the dining rooms.

I’m proud to have stepped away from day-to-day senior living operations to create the first university curricula dedicated to senior living administration, which is neither nursing home administration nor hospitality management, for a sector that has rapidly grown larger than either and requires executives uniquely trained for careers in the field.

So I really think it's been about not having any assumptions, and more about challenging the industry to do better, just as we challenged spinal cord injury and other patients in rehab to not assume they could no longer have active and productive lives. An important lesson.

INTERVIEWER:

You’ve spent decades shaping systems and communities. What has that work changed in how you imagine your own life?

CARLE:

Ultimately, I have been constantly reminded by the residents within senior living communities of what aging can and should look like. Their wisdom, their resilience, and their understanding of what is important. This was never clearer than during the COVID pandemic, while I was serving as Executive Director of The Virginian, a 300+ resident CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) in Fairfax, Virginia. It was the residents who would tell us that they had lived through worse: The Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, and the turbulence of the 60s, Watergate...and everything would be alright. We thought our job was to hold them up, but they were holding us up daily. It's all about perspective.

INTERVIEWER:

What do URCs get right about aging that traditional senior living environments tend to miss?

CARLE:

That separating people to live in a segregated environment simply based on their age, no matter how beautiful that environment may be, is still a level of segregation. I want to be clear that traditional senior living communities receive high levels of resident satisfaction. The question is whether the level of satisfaction could be higher. The most significant attribute of URCs is their ability to not only eliminate what I call the  "elderly islands", represented by the traditional senior living model, but to create the most active, intellectually stimulating, and intergenerational environment possible. Even more so when you consider that today's Boomer retirees are the most highly educated retirement demographic in history. They do not consider themselves old and are not interested in being separated from the rest of society simply because their housing needs have changed. URCs are tailor-made for them, and we see this in URCs that are 90% pre-sold months before opening, achieve 100% occupancy months, even years, sooner than traditional senior living communities, and remain full with a wait list for years. They are proof that putting a product on the shelf that customers want, not what is convenient for you to produce, is always good business.

INTERVIEWER:

After everything you’ve seen, what does a “good day” look like in later life?

CARLE: 

I think the summary above: any day that is active, intellectually stimulating, and engaged with the full spectrum of society is a "good day", and why URCs have been able to create this for the next generation of older adults.

Find out more about University Retirement Communities here!

Third Chapter Curious, LLC, 2026