The Third Phase of Life: Rethinking What Senior Living Can Be
“We can design the conditions that help belonging develop.”
October 27, 2026
Recently, I had the opportunity to spend several days in Maine at an Insights & Innovation workshop with Tarkett, alongside architects, designers, owners, and operators working in senior living design and development.
We weren’t there to talk about products or sell furniture. We were there to listen, ask questions, challenge assumptions, and better understand the opportunities and challenges facing the industry.
What stood out to me wasn’t just the conversation around design. It was the passion these individuals have for the people and communities they serve.
Throughout our discussions, one theme continued to surface: We need to challenge how we think about senior living, and perhaps more importantly, how we talk about it.
Rethinking the Third Phase of Life
We’ve become accustomed to describing life in stages. We grow up, build careers, raise families, and eventually enter retirement.
But what happens next?
The concepts of the Third Age, Third Stage, or Third Phase of Life offer different ways of thinking about what comes next. While the terminology and interpretations may differ, they invite us to reconsider how we view later life. What if we focused less on aging and more on the opportunities for continued growth, personal fulfillment, relationships, and new experiences?
Whatever we choose to call this phase of life, I believe the more important conversation is about changing the perceptions associated with it.
For too long, senior living has carried a stigma associated with institutional environments, loss of independence, and the need for care. And while care is an essential part of many communities, it shouldn’t be the defining characteristic of someone’s experience.
People don’t stop being themselves when they turn 70, 80, or 90.
They still have interests, opinions, preferences, friendships, and things they want to accomplish. They still want to make decisions, experience new things, and feel connected to the world around them.
Why should the environments we create suggest otherwise?
Challenging Ourselves to Think Differently
One of the most valuable aspects of our time in Maine was the opportunity to step outside our day-to-day responsibilities and challenge some of the assumptions we bring to our work.
It’s easy for any industry to become comfortable with its own language, expectations, and ways of doing things.
Senior living is no different.
We talk about amenities, programming, dining, resident rooms, and common areas. These are important parts of a community, but they don’t necessarily describe the experience of living there.
What if we started with different questions?
Which elements make someone feel at home? Where do people find a sense of purpose? How do we support independence while recognizing that individual needs change? What makes a community somewhere people genuinely want to live?
These aren’t questions with simple answers. But they’re worth asking as expectations for later life continue to change.
From Social Connection to Belonging
One idea that has stayed with me is the difference between creating opportunities for social interaction and creating an environment where people genuinely feel they belong.
A community can have beautiful gathering spaces, an active calendar, and plenty of opportunities to meet people. But being surrounded by others doesn’t automatically mean someone feels connected.
Belonging is more personal.
It’s about being recognized as an individual, feeling comfortable in your surroundings, and knowing there is a place for you within a community.
And it’s often found in the smallest moments of everyday life.
A familiar place to sit. A conversation over coffee. The freedom to continue a morning routine. A space where family and friends feel comfortable spending time.
These experiences may seem ordinary, but they’re part of what makes a place feel like home.
For those of us involved in creating senior living environments, that distinction matters.
Designing the Conditions for Belonging
I don’t believe design alone can create belonging. People, relationships, and the culture of a community are essential.
But we can design the conditions that help belonging develop.
The arrangement of furniture can encourage conversation. A dining environment can offer choice and flexibility. A lounge can provide opportunities to gather, observe, or simply enjoy a quiet moment. Even the spaces between destinations can become places where meaningful connections begin.
These decisions go beyond how a space looks. They influence how people experience it, interact with others, and develop a sense of home.
At Kwalu, we have an opportunity to contribute to that experience. Not simply through the products we manufacture, but through the questions we ask, the partnerships we build, and our willingness to reconsider what senior living environments can be.
Continuing the Conversation
I left Maine with a greater appreciation for the people working to move this industry forward and a renewed commitment to challenging our own thinking.
One question in particular has stayed with me: Why have we allowed an entire phase of someone’s life to become defined by the type of care they may eventually need?
It’s a question worth exploring as we consider the future of senior living.
At Kwalu, we’ve been examining one important part of that conversation through our continuing education course, Belonging by Design: Supporting Connection, Identity, and Home in Senior Living.
Drawing from research in environmental gerontology, social connection, and person-centered design, the course explores how the built environment can support or hinder belonging. It also introduces a practical framework to help architects and designers evaluate spaces through the experiences of the people who use them.
If this is a conversation your team is having, I encourage you to schedule our Belonging by Design CEU and explore the research with us.
About the Author
Damion Van Slyke is Vice President of Marketing at Kwalu. He leads brand and creative strategy across healthcare and senior living — shaping how the company communicates value, guides product narratives, and connects design intent to the realities of healthcare and senior living.