Alzheimer’s Village Dax

The Alzheimer’s Village in Dax, France, is an innovative renewal of the traditional nursing home designed specifically for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The design is an example of healing architecture and is focused on improving quality of life for a group of people that are going through major life changes.

The residents are included in as many everyday-life activities as possible and can move independently around in the local landscape surrounding their houses.
The village centre has a shop, hairdresser’s, restaurant, cultural centre and of course health care facilities – everything the resident’s know and recognise from their previous homes and neighbourhoods.

Four houses create a neighbourhood in the Alzheimer’s Village. Each of them have their own identity and courtyard. All together there are four neighborhoods connected by an urban street leading up to the village centre. These paths are full of experiences and sensory inputs with different characteristics that lie as loops in the landscape. They lead through nature and vegetation and provide several ways of staying in close contact with nature.

The village has also incorporated a research centre and housing for visiting researchers and volunteers aimed to attract global knowledge and resources, which the residents will benefit from.