Alvin Reinhard Fritz Architect Inc. - Lethbridge, Alberta

"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Portfolio

Alvin Reinhard Fritz Architect Inc.

RR8 S28 C14
5801 1st Avenue South
Lethbridge, Alberta T1J 4P4

T: 403.320.8100
F: 403.327.3373

general@alvinfritzarchitect.com

	The Alberta Association of Architects
	Architectural Institute of British Columbia
	Manitoba Association of Architects
	Ontario Association of Architects
	Saskatchewan Association of Architects
	LEED Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design

Senior Facilities

Fairmont Park Extendicare,

Lethbridge, Alberta

The Extendicare Fairmont Park Care Facility was designed around the concept of “Aging in Place” and incorporated a care facility and an adjoining Supplemental Housing facility linked together by a pedestrian link.

The care facility includes a dementia cottage that is made up of four households, each with twelve beds. The Designated Assisted Living/ Enhanced Lodge provides accommodation for 82 studios together with 10 one bedroom suites and two bariatric suites. This portion of the building contains a large central dining room area together with a serving area and living room, and has direct connections to the sheltered exterior courtyard.

The facility’s “Main Street” area consists of communal spaces which connect the dementia cottage and enhanced lodge, allowing a vibrant and healthy community to be established. The main floor facilities include the entrance lounge, bistro, community function room, conference room, salon and public washrooms.

Close collaboration with the Client, Authorities Having Jurisdiction, as well as review of the requirements of Alberta Health Services was essential and proved invaluable in the completion of this project.

Inglewood Club,

Red Deer, Alberta

Designed to accommodate a diverse and multifaceted ‘Age in Place’ community, Inglewood is being successfully managed by Symphony Senior Living, an organization which embraces the European model of care as an integral part of every senior’s life.

The project is designed with a four-storey component housing independent living and a one-storey component housing the higher level of care facilities. The one-storey component encircles a dynamic courtyard designed to capture the sun which, in the shelter created by the four-storey, creates an effective microclimate extending the shoulder seasons and allowing the residents the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors for greater period of time. The enclosure created by the courtyard walls allows residents with a propensity for elopement to enjoy the outdoor environment without risk.

Eaux-Claires Extendicare,

Edmonton, Alberta

This Facility provides accommodation for 180 residents based on the household concept of small manageable clusters for residents. This allows Extendicare to provide specialized care for dementia patients. A critical aspect of nursing care in architectural design is to ensure that the environment can be managed and maintained with a reasonable contingent of staff thereby ensuring its viability. Fifteen back-to-back unit households were designed for the project with shared “back of house”. This allows for an intimate, non-institutional setting where residents take their meals in small groups and interrelate on a per household basis while still permitting staff to circulate between households.

The three storey steel frame building is comprised of two courtyard elements connected by a central “Main Street” which houses communal activity spaces, bistro, community rooms and administration areas. A partial basement area is used for staff support areas, main kitchen, storage and building services.

This project was designed by Alvin Reinhard Fritz Architect Inc, and built by Medican Construction, under the management of Glenn Martin, Project Manager, retained by Extendicare. The facility is currently under construction and is set to be completed by October 2011.

Chinook Village,

Medicine Hat, Alberta

When Hillcrest College in Medicine Hat closed their doors Chinook Village began converting this college campus into a seniors housing complex. The development sits on 8 acres with 343 suites of varying levels of care with over 400,000 square feet of living space. There are 180 Life Lease Suites, 94 Congregate Living suites, and 69 Assisted Living Suites. The final phase of this complex was completed in 2004. Chinook Village is one of the most complete retirement communities in Canada comprehensively addressing all the various levels of seniors housing and care.

ARFAI provided master plan designs through to Contract Documentation for all 5 phases of construction. Construction of Chinook Village involved some demolition and over 14,000 square feet of renovations to provide office, retail, dining space and other amenity space. A kitchen renovation was also undertaken to keep up with the growth of the project as the condominium, Life Lease, and Assisted Living suites were developed.

Another aspect of the project which was particularly interesting in the context of renovation was the desire of the client to retain an amenity building at the center of the courtyard. Again this resulted in considerable complexity and the amenity building, which was kept primarily for nostalgic reasons, was incorporated into the design.

Aspen Ridge,

Red Deer, Alberta

Masterpiece Aspen Ridge is a senior’s housing development located Red Deer, AB. ARFAI provided a complete range of design services for this project from conceptual design and construction documents to contract administration. The project was completed in July 2005 by Medican Construction.

The facility includes 154 suites with 3 different levels of care. It provides 89 independent living, 24 assisted living and 41 dementia care suites with numerous shared amenities. Dining amenities include dining rooms, lounges, and a cappuccino and juice bar. Entertainment amenities include a games room, library with internet stations, movie theatre and an arts and crafts studio. Additional amenities such as a fitness center, chapel general store and salon were also included in the project, and provide residents the ability to access and accomplish daily tasks without having to leave the facility.

South Country Village,

Medicine Hat, Alberta

South Country Village is one of the first facilities in Southern Alberta to provide comprehensive care for an aging population. South Country focuses on the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of its residents, reflecting God’s love and care for all people.

ARFAI’s work at South Country Village has been ongoing over the past twenty-three years. Architectural work has extended from the Garden Estates to the north, to Sunny View to the south, and from the renovations to the Sunnyside Nursing Home to the west, and to the most recent addition, Heritage Heights, on the east perimeter of the site.

One of the most interesting endeavors has been the ongoing addition of a second story over 1950’s and 1960’s era buildings which had nominally flat roof construction, prone to leakage and creating ongoing maintenance issues for South Country Village. The second story additions were aesthetically implemented, creating a seamless tie between the new space at the upper level and the pre-existing main floor. The end result was renewed life and vitality for aged facilities.

South Country Village has developed Heritage Heights, the newest residential development on the campus, which provides all of the amenities including underground parking and the luxury anticipated by senior’s in today’s retirement environment.

Heritage Heights,

Medicine Hat, Alberta

Heritage Heights is located on the east side of the South Country Village site just north of the Medicine Hat Airport. The four storey condominium is designed and constructed to meet and exceed the Building Code requirements. It features an underground concrete parkade which offers residents secure and covered parking year round, as well as two elevators which reduce wait times during peak operation. A total of 61 residential suites ranging from one to two bedrooms are finished with high quality, low maintenance
materials, and provide residents with views of the Cypress Hills and a beautifully landscaped courtyard.

The Heritage Heights facility utilizes some of the construction industries most energy efficient design concepts. The majority of the heating and cooling capacity required by the building is accomplished via GeoExchange engineering. GeoExchange utilizes the Earth’s constant ground temperature to control the
building temperature. In addition, the building also benefits from solar collectors on the roof that assist in minimizing the electrical demand of the building. Not only do these systems promote a more energy efficient and sustainable building, they also provide residents with reduced utility costs.

As an added benefit, the Heritage Heights condo provides a link to the existing South Country Village Garden Apartments by creating an interior connection. This connection gives Heritage Heights residents the freedom of independent living, with the ability to access the other services offered by South Country Village.

Club Sierra At River Ridge,

Medicine Hat, Alberta

Alvin Reinhard Fritz Architect Inc. (ARFAI) collaborated closely with Tim Garforth-Bles in designing the architecture that provides for these innovative and wonderful surroundings. Located on the edge of the escarpment overlooking the beautiful South Saskatchewan River Valley in Medicine Hat, Masterpiece River Ridge provides a spectacular living environment. The dining room extends to the outdoor garden terrace overlooking the river valley in a sheltered south facing orientation. The concrete balusters which defines the edge of the garden terrace and crown the robust stone wall at the dining room exterior were locally handcrafted.

Masterpiece showcases Alvin Reinhard Fritz Architect Inc.’s expertise in Assisted-Living and luxury amenity design and development. Featured amenities include a main street, a large games room & lounge, a library, theater, and salon.

The original “Main-Street” concept was developed to emulate an outdoor environment designed by a series of small shops. The design began with a collaborative sketch of the “street” elevation and was then rendered in an aquarelle perspective view.

The “Main-Street” environment provides a delightful relief for the shut-in resident who cannot get outdoors unsupervised due to elopement risk. It also provides a great environment for residents to visit with their families on an ongoing basis. Private balconies overlooking the river allow for residents to enjoy the southern exposure and bask in the famous Alberta sunshine. The prominence on the escarpment ensures exceptional views not only to the River Valley but to the city scape beyond.

Masterpiece provides a continuum of Care Services including Supportive Living, Assisted Living, and Continuing Care. The architecture has responded to these care environments and provides the appropriate facilities necessary to effectively accommodate fully independent residents and residents with dementia and cognitive impairments or ongoing and continuous nursing care.

The architecture of Club Sierra at River Ridge has successfully responded to the mission of Masterpiece:
“Creating meaningful experiences for residents.” ARFAI is pleased to have been able to contribute to quality-of-life for these residents in their twilight years through an excellently designed senior’s environment.

Wentworth Manor,

Calgary, Alberta

The Wentworth Manor is one of the first Assisted-Living projects in Alberta. The project was envisioned in collaboration with the Brenda Strafford Foundation which had purchased a site between Sarcee Trail and Costello Blvd. at 17th Avenue in Southwest Calgary. The site had considerable grade rising from Sarcee westward providing design challenges which were made even more interesting as a result of a planning mandate requiring the architect to ensure that views to the Calgary Tower were maintained for residents who lived on the escarpment west of Costello Boulevard. Careful survey drawings were prepared demonstrating that the geodetic design elevation of the ridge of the building honored these views, and the building was then constructed to precisely these dimensions.

Black Rock Terrace,

Lethbridge, Alberta

The Black Rock Terrace, a Green Acres Foundation project, was designed in close collaboration with Client representatives and most notably, Dawna Coslovi, CEO of Green Acres Foundation. The siting of the project effectively creates a triad of buildings with the Green Acres Foundation’s Pemmican Lodge sited opposite, and their Administrative offices at the entrance to the court formed by the two senior’s Lodges.

The four story wood frame structure has a full parkade below the building thereby reducing the amount of parking at grade and creating a more residential and intimate exterior environment. This allows for more landscaping, and more opportunities for the users to inhabit the exterior and interact socially with residents and the public of the adjacent museum and seniors residences. The building accommodates 140 residential suites (each with a bedroom, lounge, bathroom, kitchenette, and storage closet) together with communal facilities on the main floor.

Working directly with the client, the architectural team undertook extensive on-site reviews of similar facilities in other provinces to analyze the critical inter-relationships so important within this type of facility. This assisted in clearly establishing the client’s aspirations, goals and architectural taste, and formed a good basis for the development of a detailed Architectural Program. ARFAI also assisted the Client in the review and selection of the Construction Manager for the project.

Evergreen,

Calgary, Alberta

Evergreen is a senior’s housing development in the Evergreen community in South West Calgary, AB managed by Symphony Senior Living out of Calgary, AB. This project was built by Masterpiece Construction and completed in December 2006.

This elegant facility provides 154 suites with 3 different levels of care and numerous amenity spaces. This facility provides 90 independent living, 24 assisted living, and 40 dementia care suites. Dining amenities include dining rooms, lounges, and a cappuccino / juice bar. Entertainment amenities include games room, library with internet stations, movie theatre and an arts and crafts studio. Some other amenities within the facility include a fitness centre, chapel, general store, hair salon and laundry facilities.

ARFAI provided conceptual design services right through to the completion of this facility. Symphony Senior Living is committed to providing comfortable, unassuming hospitality to its senior’s residents.

Fairmont Park Extendicare, Lethbridge, Alberta
	The Extendicare Fairmont Park Care Facility was designed around the concept of “Aging in Place” and incorporated a care facility and an adjoining Supplemental Housing facility linked together by a pedestrian link. The care facility includes a dementia cottage that is made up of four households, each with twelve beds. The Designated Assisted Living/ Enhanced Lodge provides accommodation for 82 studios together with 10 one bedroom suites and two bariatric suites. This portion of the building contains a large central dining room area together with a serving area and living room, and has direct connections to the sheltered exterior courtyard. The facility’s “Main Street” area consists of communal spaces which connect the dementia cottage and enhanced lodge, allowing a vibrant and healthy community to be established. The main floor facilities include the entrance lounge, bistro, community function room, conference room, salon and public washrooms. Close collaboration with the Client, Authorities Having Jurisdiction, as well as review of the requirements of Alberta Health Services was essential and proved invaluable in the completion of this project.
Inglewood Club, Red Deer, Alberta
	Designed to accommodate a diverse and multifaceted ‘Age in Place’ community, Inglewood is being successfully managed by Symphony Senior Living, an organization which embraces the European model of care as an integral part of every senior’s life. The project is designed with a four-storey component housing independent living and a one-storey component housing the higher level of care facilities. The one-storey component encircles a dynamic courtyard designed to capture the sun which, in the shelter created by the four-storey, creates an effective microclimate extending the shoulder seasons and allowing the residents the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors for greater period of time. The enclosure created by the courtyard walls allows residents with a propensity for elopement to enjoy the outdoor environment without risk.
Eaux-Claires Extendicare, Edmonton, Alberta
	This Facility provides accommodation for 180 residents based on the household concept of small manageable clusters for residents. This allows Extendicare to provide specialized care for dementia patients. A critical aspect of nursing care in architectural design is to ensure that the environment can be managed and maintained with a reasonable contingent of staff thereby ensuring its viability. Fifteen back-to-back unit households were designed for the project with shared “back of house”. This allows for an intimate, non-institutional setting where residents take their meals in small groups and interrelate on a per household basis while still permitting staff to circulate between households. The three storey steel frame building is comprised of two courtyard elements connected by a central “Main Street” which houses communal activity spaces, bistro, community rooms and administration areas. A partial basement area is used for staff support areas, main kitchen, storage and building services. This project was designed by Alvin Reinhard Fritz Architect Inc, and built by Medican Construction, under the management of Glenn Martin, Project Manager, retained by Extendicare. The facility is currently under construction and is set to be completed by October 2011.
Chinook Village, Medicine Hat, Alberta
	When Hillcrest College in Medicine Hat closed their doors Chinook Village began converting this college campus into a seniors housing complex. The development sits on 8 acres with 343 suites of varying levels of care with over 400,000 square feet of living space. There are 180 Life Lease Suites, 94 Congregate Living suites, and 69 Assisted Living Suites. The final phase of this complex was completed in 2004. Chinook Village is one of the most complete retirement communities in Canada comprehensively addressing all the various levels of seniors housing and care. ARFAI provided master plan designs through to Contract Documentation for all 5 phases of construction. Construction of Chinook Village involved some demolition and over 14,000 square feet of renovations to provide office, retail, dining space and other amenity space. A kitchen renovation was also undertaken to keep up with the growth of the project as the condominium, Life Lease, and Assisted Living suites were developed. Another aspect of the project which was particularly interesting in the context of renovation was the desire of the client to retain an amenity building at the center of the courtyard. Again this resulted in considerable complexity and the amenity building, which was kept primarily for nostalgic reasons, was incorporated into the design.

South Country Village, Medicine Hat, Alberta
	South Country Village is one of the first facilities in Southern Alberta to provide comprehensive care for an aging population. South Country focuses on the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of its residents, reflecting God’s love and care for all people. ARFAI’s work at South Country Village has been ongoing over the past twenty-three years. Architectural work has extended from the Garden Estates to the north, to Sunny View to the south, and from the renovations to the Sunnyside Nursing Home to the west, and to the most recent addition, Heritage Heights, on the east perimeter of the site. One of the most interesting endeavors has been the ongoing addition of a second story over 1950’s and 1960’s era buildings which had nominally flat roof construction, prone to leakage and creating ongoing maintenance issues for South Country Village. The second story additions were aesthetically implemented, creating a seamless tie between the new space at the upper level and the pre-existing main floor. The end result was renewed life and vitality for aged facilities. South Country Village has developed Heritage Heights, the newest residential development on the campus, which provides all of the amenities including underground parking and the luxury anticipated by senior’s in today’s retirement environment.
Heritage Heights, Medicine Hat, Alberta
	Heritage Heights is located on the east side of the South Country Village site just north of the Medicine Hat Airport. The four storey condominium is designed and constructed to meet and exceed the Building Code requirements. It features an underground concrete parkade which offers residents secure and covered parking year round, as well as two elevators which reduce wait times during peak operation. A total of 61 residential suites ranging from one to two bedrooms are finished with high quality, low maintenance materials, and provide residents with views of the Cypress Hills and a beautifully landscaped courtyard. The Heritage Heights facility utilizes some of the construction industries most energy efficient design concepts. The majority of the heating and cooling capacity required by the building is accomplished via GeoExchange engineering. GeoExchange utilizes the Earth’s constant ground temperature to control the building temperature. In addition, the building also benefits from solar collectors on the roof that assist in minimizing the electrical demand of the building. Not only do these systems promote a more energy efficient and sustainable building, they also provide residents with reduced utility costs. As an added benefit, the Heritage Heights condo provides a link to the existing South Country Village Garden Apartments by creating an interior connection. This connection gives Heritage Heights residents the freedom of independent living, with the ability to access the other services offered by South Country Village.
Club Sierra At River Ridge, Medicine Hat, Alberta
	Alvin Reinhard Fritz Architect Inc. (ARFAI) collaborated closely with Tim Garforth-Bles in designing the architecture that provides for these innovative and wonderful surroundings. Located on the edge of the escarpment overlooking the beautiful South Saskatchewan River Valley in Medicine Hat, Masterpiece River Ridge provides a spectacular living environment. The dining room extends to the outdoor garden terrace overlooking the river valley in a sheltered south facing orientation. The concrete balusters which defines the edge of the garden terrace and crown the robust stone wall at the dining room exterior were locally handcrafted. Masterpiece showcases Alvin Reinhard Fritz Architect Inc.’s expertise in Assisted-Living and luxury amenity design and development. Featured amenities include a main street, a large games room & lounge, a library, theater, and salon. The original “Main-Street” concept was developed to emulate an outdoor environment designed by a series of small shops. The design began with a collaborative sketch of the “street” elevation and was then rendered in an aquarelle perspective view. The “Main-Street” environment provides a delightful relief for the shut-in resident who cannot get outdoors unsupervised due to elopement risk. It also provides a great environment for residents to visit with their families on an ongoing basis. Private balconies overlooking the river allow for residents to enjoy the southern exposure and bask in the famous Alberta sunshine. The prominence on the escarpment ensures exceptional views not only to the River Valley but to the city scape beyond. Masterpiece provides a continuum of Care Services including Supportive Living, Assisted Living, and Continuing Care. The architecture has responded to these care environments and provides the appropriate facilities necessary to effectively accommodate fully independent residents and residents with dementia and cognitive impairments or ongoing and continuous nursing care. The architecture of Club Sierra at River Ridge has successfully responded to the mission of Masterpiece: “Creating meaningful experiences for residents.” ARFAI is pleased to have been able to contribute to quality-of-life for these residents in their twilight years through an excellently designed senior’s environment.
Wentworth Manor, Calgary, Alberta
	The Wentworth Manor is one of the first Assisted-Living projects in Alberta. The project was envisioned in collaboration with the Brenda Strafford Foundation which had purchased a site between Sarcee Trail and Costello Blvd. at 17th Avenue in Southwest Calgary. The site had considerable grade rising from Sarcee westward providing design challenges which were made even more interesting as a result of a planning mandate requiring the architect to ensure that views to the Calgary Tower were maintained for residents who lived on the escarpment west of Costello Boulevard. Careful survey drawings were prepared demonstrating that the geodetic design elevation of the ridge of the building honored these views, and the building was then constructed to precisely these dimensions.
Black Rock Terrace, Lethbridge, Alberta
	The Black Rock Terrace, a Green Acres Foundation project, was designed in close collaboration with Client representatives and most notably, Dawna Coslovi, CEO of Green Acres Foundation. The siting of the project effectively creates a triad of buildings with the Green Acres Foundation’s Pemmican Lodge sited opposite, and their Administrative offices at the entrance to the court formed by the two senior’s Lodges. The four story wood frame structure has a full parkade below the building thereby reducing the amount of parking at grade and creating a more residential and intimate exterior environment. This allows for more landscaping, and more opportunities for the users to inhabit the exterior and interact socially with residents and the public of the adjacent museum and seniors residences. The building accommodates 140 residential suites (each with a bedroom, lounge, bathroom, kitchenette, and storage closet) together with communal facilities on the main floor. Working directly with the client, the architectural team undertook extensive on-site reviews of similar facilities in other provinces to analyze the critical inter-relationships so important within this type of facility. This assisted in clearly establishing the client’s aspirations, goals and architectural taste, and formed a good basis for the development of a detailed Architectural Program. ARFAI also assisted the Client in the review and selection of the Construction Manager for the project.
Evergreen, Calgary, Alberta
	Evergreen is a senior’s housing development in the Evergreen community in South West Calgary, AB managed by Symphony Senior Living out of Calgary, AB. This project was built by Masterpiece Construction and completed in December 2006. This elegant facility provides 154 suites with 3 different levels of care and numerous amenity spaces. This facility provides 90 independent living, 24 assisted living, and 40 dementia care suites. Dining amenities include dining rooms, lounges, and a cappuccino / juice bar. Entertainment amenities include games room, library with internet stations, movie theatre and an arts and crafts studio. Some other amenities within the facility include a fitness centre, chapel, general store, hair salon and laundry facilities. ARFAI provided conceptual design services right through to the completion of this facility. Symphony Senior Living is committed to providing comfortable, unassuming hospitality to its senior’s residents.