Small House Design Reimagined

The small house model continues to offer significant benefits for veterans' long-term care—from personalized resident experiences to decentralized staffing models. But as operational needs evolve, new hybrid strategies are reshaping how small house principles are applied.

Design elements now include shared support areas between paired households, minimized kitchen redundancies, and multipurpose activity zones that consolidate staff. Gardens, household kitchens, and lounge areas are still central to the resident experience but are more efficiently placed and serviced to reduce cost and square footage.

Many projects now utilize L-shaped households to reduce staff travel distances and streamline supervision. Hybrid layouts may retain the core values of the small house model—privacy, personalization, autonomy—while reducing building area by up to 12,000 SF and saving millions in construction costs.

Strategic Value:
Small house models create operational efficiency, improve resident and staff satisfaction, and align with evolving federal care standards.