Mapping Memory: Architecture for Dementia

Young, Old, and Nothing in Between opens with the story of Grandma Lovely, whose fading memory and growing disorientation illustrate the lived experience of dementia. A young girl supports her by drawing a simple neighborhood map—an empathetic gesture that becomes the conceptual starting point for this project and its investigation of how dementia interacts with space, care, and urban life of those who have aged.

People affected by dementia often lose their connection to past identities and life stories. As memory fades, the present moment gains importance, shifting attention toward immediate sensory cues, material qualities, and spatial clarity. This understanding guides the project at every scale, from urban analysis to architectural detail.

Alongside theoretical research, state and private dementia care institutions in Zurich were mapped using open-source data. These facilities are typically organized through repetitive and efficient spatial sequences—resident rooms, corridors, communal dining spaces, and outdoor areas. While functionally clear, many feel clinical and anonymous. This observation raised a central question: how can care architecture support dignity, familiarity, and emotional comfort, rather than efficiency alone?

This question led to a focused material investigation centered on wood and its patina. Natural materials—particularly timber—can support emotional comfort, sensory engagement, and a sense of familiarity for people living with dementia. Sixteen wood patinas were developed, ranging from highly protective finishes to more permeable treatments, and tested in both horizontal and vertical applications. Aging is embraced as a design quality, allowing surfaces to evolve over time, register touch and use, and gradually become familiar through everyday interaction.

The project is situated at Hardturm in Zurich. A “Dementia Map” analyzes accessibility, vegetation, heat stress, noise exposure, topography, and orientation points. Within the existing parking structure, voids along the spiral ramp emerged as the quietest and most protected spaces on site, with daylight penetrating through vertical openings that support orientation and sensory balance.

The Hardturm masterplan—characterized by large-scale towers, a stadium, and cooperative housing—is critically examined for its lack of human scale. The parking structure is reused as a mediator between the urban scale of development and the intimate scale of care.

The dementia care center is positioned between newly formed courtyards, creating a legible and protected spatial condition within the larger development. Inside, spatial organization prioritizes clarity, continuity, and choice. Circulation follows continuous loops without dead ends, supporting intuitive movement and reducing anxiety. Shared kitchens, living spaces, courtyards, and vertical voids provide visual reference points and moments of choice.

Timber floors, handrails, posts, benches, and integrated seating form a continuous material language throughout the building, offering tactile cues, warmth, and familiarity. A suspended timber façade extends this logic outward, allowing the material to weather visibly over time and become a living layer of orientation and identity.

Through spatial clarity, material continuity, and careful attention to sensory experience, the project proposes architecture as a mediator between memory and the present—supporting orientation, dignity, and everyday well-being for people living with dementia.

Project by: Till Blaser

Teaching team: Teaching team: Anna Puigjaner, Dafni Retzepi, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Pol Esteve Castelló, Lisa Maillard, He Shen, Valentina Noce, He Yufei. In collaboration with BUK.

Master Thesis: Autumn 2025

Images: Luís Úrculo