Slow Care, Let Go is a transitional living center in Greenfield, Massachusetts, designed for women aged 55–65 with extreme hoarding behavior. Many are divorced, some live with children, and all carry emotional histories that manifest as intense attachment to objects. This semester-long project began not by trying to “fix” hoarding, but by deconstructing its stigma—recognizing it not as dysfunction, but as a personal archive of meaning, time, and care.
Through interviews, site visits to transitional centers, and consultation with programs like NYC’s Office of Mental Health, Code Black Clinics, and The Bridge, I studied how current systems often traumatize residents through forced clearance. In contrast, this project proposes a gentler architectural framework that centers dignity and emotional pacing.
The building guides residents through three therapeutic stages—Emotional Mapping, Memory Hierarchy, and Functional Integration—supported by spatial tools: sliding storage walls, operable facades, and color-coded circulation (in calming lavender tones). Key design needs include visual transparency, private paths, low-stimulation communal areas, seamless flooring, multiple fire egresses, and architectural support for personal rituals and visible progress.
Here, residents begin with all their belongings, but move forward gradually—sorting, reflecting, and releasing. This is not a permanent home, but a space where healing unfolds slowly, and architecture listens before acting.
