Living with AIDS: AIDS hospice, Evanston, Illinois

Thesis Statement In response to today's growing number of people contracting the AIDS virus and due to the fact that there are too few facilities to care for their special needs, a new style of hospice needs to be designed. The new hospice must be a place that helps patients cope with the stages of life encountered as AIDS progresses and should allow for interracting relationships within the hospice. In addition, the hospice should correspond with surrounding area to create a warm supportive life affirming environment both inside and out, creating a real sense of "home" for the residents. Presently, the AIDS epidemic is becoming a growing issue nation wide; it shows no discrimination against age, sex, and race. Even with the alarming number of Aids cases to date, the public and governmental agencies are slow in responding to the rising need. The need for public housing for HIV and AIDS patients is large. Some of this need can be met by residential hospices for people living with AIDS. Here, providing an surrounding with a design that meets the needs of the patients and promotes individual choices relieves residents who are sick and closer to death everyday. This residential idea supplies architects with an opportunity to respond with a new unconventional type of healthcare. Therefore, a new frontier is open for an interractive environmentally responsive form of architecture in which patients are able to have a place to feel alive without the fear of abandonment by society and family members. The hospice should be placed in a surburban setting with daily _c^iJe&_i>f-life and living going on all around to promote this sense of home. The hospice should incorporate a private/semi-private setting, which would bring more people toward a closer understanding and acceptance of this disease and the people living with it. Context My site is located in the suburb of Evanston, Illinois, north of downtown Chicago. This area is a beautiful community which is full of Hfe. This is a quaint, safe neighborhood area containing a variety of homes, apartments, stores, and restaurants. Facility The vehicle for my thesis will be a hospice for people living with Aids. The initial size of this complex will include 20 to 24 available Uving quarters to accomodate a range of residents from those that are self-sufficient to residents who are home bound.