Across the Campus: Uniting the Generations, The Spires at Berry College turns to Faulkner Design Group & Kwalu to Achieve its Mission

“We love the comfortable furniture and find people sitting all the time in the lobby; they might have their feet propped up on a table and are just chilling out. We’re not fancy at The Spires. People really feel like it’s home, because it is.”

The primary objective for The Spires at Berry College was to deeply integrate the senior living community with the adjacent Berry College campus in Rome, Georgia. Offering a range of senior living options: independent, assisted, memory care, and skilled nursing and rehabilitation, The Spires site is just a third of a mile from the college, connecting it via walking trails and a road, providing access for both pedestrians and cars. Seeking common spaces to facilitate intergenerational interactions between students and residents, The Spires contracted with senior living experts, Faulkner Design Group, Dallas, Texas, to design common spaces to facilitate intergenerational interactions between students, while also designing the dining areas and residences. 

The Spires’ design was heavily influenced by the surrounding Berry College campus, including the modern architecture of the Ford Building and natural elements like the nearby Eagle Lake and rock quarry. The Faulkner Design team aimed to capture a “modern mountain lodge” feel that would integrate seamlessly with the college’s aesthetic.

The Spires has succeeded in creating a welcoming, non-institutional environment that feels more like an activity center than a traditional senior living community. Residents and students from Berry College find the space comfortable and easy to navigate, with ample seating arrangements that encourage socializing.

Seamless transition by design

“Faulkner Design Group’s philosophy for senior living projects is to create a cohesive, residential feel across all levels of care, aiming to use similar finishes and materials throughout, so residents don’t feel like they are moving into a more institutional environment as their needs change,” says Nicole Hill, Faulkner Director of Design and Senior Project Manager for The Spires. “The goal is to provide a seamless transition.”

The Spires interiors are designed to meet all the safety requirements and dimensional needs for residents. Faulkner’s approach to designing for multiple levels of care is to maintain consistent finishes and materials as much as possible in order to avoid residents feeling like they are moving into a more institutional environment if they move to a higher level of care. To achieve this, adaptation is required for the memory care and short-term disability areas.

“We have 330 residents that move throughout the facility. One of my favorite aspects of Faulkner’s design is that every single door has the same shade of green paint around the frame, and the same exact light fixture and nameplate,” says Laurie Steber, executive director of The Spires. “You walk down a hallway to memory care or healthcare, but it still looks the same.” 

Putting their feet up, just like home 

Faulkner’s designers integrated Kwalu furniture throughout The Spires, citing the brand’s durable Protea® finishes, and ability to withstand the heavy use in senior living environments that also have high safety standards. 

“Not only does Kwalu have really nice looking products, they’re very good about coming up with fresh designs. Each season, Kwalu’s designers seek the input of our firm, and I’m sure other firms like ours’, to ensure that its designs are looking modern and not reflecting senior living communities of the past,” says Hill. “The biggest achievement is the durability of Kwalu Protea finishes. Senior living communities get used quite heavily. There’s a number of factors, standards, and dimensions to be considered that also ensure the furniture is safe for residents to use.” 

“We love the comfortable furniture and find people sitting all the time in the lobby; they might have their feet propped up on a table and are just chilling out. We’re not fancy at The Spires. People really feel like it’s home, because it is,” says Steber. “There’s a natural organic feeling with the integration of the colors to reflect the woods and water on campus.” 

Steber indicates that it is common to have 25 to 30 students eating with the residents and just hanging out with them, playing games or toasting S’mores on the porch. When a rare snowstorm in Georgia closed local food services and kept the girls’ basketball team on campus, The Spires hosted the team for dinner.

Customize for good design and high-use

“There’s also a lot of moving furniture around as spaces are constantly rearranged within the communities for events and activities. It can get unintentionally abused pretty easily with chairs being shoved underneath tables during dining,” Hill observes. “Further, cleanability is a key issue. You know, senior communities, not unlike hospitals, use extremely harsh–especially after Covid–cleaning chemicals. We found that the Kwalu Protea finishes can handle all of that abuse.” Hill also indicates that the finishes on their case goods and soft goods also can handle being run into tables or shoved up against walls without scratching, dinging, or denting of the finish. “It can last a very long time in a high-use community. That’s what the clients want.”

Faulkner Design Group works closely with Kwalu to customize furniture with COM fabrics that integrate with the overall design aesthetic, then presents physical samples to the client for final selection. “Kwalu offers a variety of Protea finishes, allowing designers to specify the same chair frame with a different finish and the COM. While this isn’t a fully custom piece, it allows for flexibility in design, making the chair unique to each project,” says Hill.

Since Kwalu manufactures in Mexico, its lead times are shorter. “It’s faster for us to get their product, and we’ve always had a really great working relationship with them,” Hill reflects. “Kwalu has helped us out when we were in a pickle many, many times. So, yeah, all around, they just really have great customer service.”

The Spires has seen significant demand and growth since opening in June 2020, with many referrals from current residents, and there is land available for potential future expansion with more social spaces and meeting rooms for the residents and students to share. 

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