The Brenda Strafford Foundation, Garden Loft and Alberta Innovates collaborate to launch a first-of-its-kind initiative to support seniors living safely at home.
The Brenda Strafford Foundation (BSF) in partnership with Garden Loft, and with support from Alberta Innovates, has launched an innovative new health data integration project aimed at transforming how older adults age in place using advanced architectural safety and support infrastructure, smart home technology, passive monitoring, and real-time health insights.
As Alberta’s population ages, the demand for long-term care and health services is rising sharply, especially in rural and under-served communities where access to care infrastructure is limited.
At the same time, older adults increasingly express the desire to remain living in their community of choice and outside of care facilities, while safely managing evolving health and mobility needs. Existing housing and care models often fall short in balancing autonomy, safety, and timely support.
Garden Loft addresses this challenge through a groundbreaking housing innovation that reimagines how older adults can age in their community of choice with dignity, support, and connection.
Garden Loft is an Alberta-made, prefabricated home designed specifically for older adults and individuals with differing abilities. The homes are compact, accessible, adaptable, and enhanced with physical and digital supports. A fall-safe floor reduces the chance of injury from a fall, continuous integrated handrails assist mobility, and sit-stand kitchen and bath counters aid those with limited stamina. Non-invasive sensors monitor mobility, sleep, routines, home usage, and wellness markers to early identify and support changing physical and cognitive needs over time.
“Garden Loft is designed to rethink how independent housing can support health and independence as people age,” said John Brown, co-founder of Garden Loft. “This is more than a smart home. It’s a new model of care.”
“Garden Loft brings together advanced architectural design, digital technology, and passive monitoring to create living environments that actively support health, enabling people to continue to age in their communities of choice with a higher quality of life, greater confidence, dignity, and connection.”
To date, seven Garden Lofts have been installed as backyard suites for clients in Calgary, Airdrie, Edmonton, and Ottawa.
This new health data integration project will be deployed and tested in Garden Loft’s first village project of 10 homes currently under construction in a rural Southern Alberta community.
The project will refine and evaluate Garden Loft’s digital user-friendly interface consisting of a green-yellow-red alert dashboard that supports clinical and non-clinical decision-making. The dashboard helps older adults, caregivers, and healthcare providers understand whether observed behaviours are within normal limits (green), require attention (yellow), or suggest a possible critical health concern (red) to enable timely, preventative interventions before issues escalate into emergency care.
For example, a subtle reduction in fridge use, change in bathroom visits, and a shift in sleep pattern can be automatically flagged for review by the digital infrastructure, potentially preventing complications such as dehydration, UTIs, or falls.
“This project represents an important step forward in how we support older adults to live safely and independently at home,” said Catherine Laing, Vice President of BSF’s Dr. Barrie Strafford Centre for Learning, Innovation, & Quality (CLIQ). “By transforming everyday data into meaningful health insights, we can detect early changes, intervene sooner, and ultimately shift from reactive care to a more proactive, person-centred model that improves outcomes and reduces strain on the healthcare system.”
This project brings together expertise and support from each partner. BSF and CLIQ brings expertise in aging care and senior living, research, and data insights to function as the innovation and evaluation engine of the project. Garden Loft provides a housing platform with integrated architectural safety supports and a digital technology infrastructure that enables passive, non-intrusive data collection and real-time insights. Alberta Innovates is providing funding and strategic support to advance, validate, and scale this innovation.
“This project demonstrates how Alberta-led innovation can address healthcare challenges,” said Muna Sabouny, Business Partner of Care Delivery Innovation at Alberta Innovates.
“By supporting the implementation, evaluation and adoption of data-driven solutions like Garden Loft through our Digital4Health funding program, we can enable earlier intervention, improve care experiences for seniors and communities, and advance more sustainable models of care.”
“Strengthening cross-sector collaboration between health system leaders, industry partners and innovation agencies is essential to accelerate meaningful transformation in care delivery,” says Raja Mita, Vice President of One Health at Alberta Innovates.
Construction of the first Garden Loft Village has commenced, and it is expected the 10 units will be deployed and occupied by late 2026.
This 24-month project will include a preliminary validation of the Garden Loft complete with integrated physical and digital infrastructure – including the health data integration dashboard – in a real-world setting through collaboration with older adults, caregivers, clinicians, and partners.
The initiative aims to generate evidence to support broader adoption and scale across Alberta in alignment with the province’s shift toward community-based care and goals to reduce system pressures while improving quality of life for seniors.
About The Brenda Strafford Foundation
The Brenda Strafford Foundation is a registered Canadian charity established in 1975 by Dr. Barrie I. Strafford in memory of his late wife, Brenda. Founded on a commitment to compassion, dignity, and community, BSF works to optimize well-being and enrich lives through high-quality care, innovation, and community supports. Its areas of focus include aging care & senior living; prevention of domestic violence; international healthcare; and innovation and research led through the Dr. Barrie Strafford Centre for Learning, Innovation, & Quality (CLIQ). As BSF’s centre for innovation, learning, research, and quality advancement, CLIQ brings together partners across sectors to explore new ideas, strengthen systems, and improve outcomes for communities. Learn more at theBSF.ca | goinnovate.ca
About Garden Loft
Garden Loft is an Alberta-based housing innovation company co-founded by Dr. John Brown, Carina van Olm, and Matthew North. Designed as a first-of-its-kind fully accessible, prefabricated home, Garden Loft integrates advanced architectural safety components, smart technologies, and passive monitoring systems directly into a high-quality compact home that can be deployed by truck across Canada, including rural and remote settings. As the world’s first full-stack home, Garden Loft combines housing, digital infrastructure, and health data into a complete residential environment that supports extended aging in place, enabling older adults to live safely, independently, and with dignity in communities across Canada. Garden Loft is a bridge between living in the family home and living in continuing care, helping to slow the flow of seniors into the healthcare system. Learn more at gardenloft.ca
About Alberta Innovates
Alberta Innovates is the province’s most comprehensive research and innovation agency. From funding to commercialization, it is Alberta’s innovation engine. Alberta Innovates fosters and accelerates research and innovation to benefit citizens and drive economic growth. Alberta Innovates works across sectors to fund, partner and enable entrepreneurship throughout the province. The corporation operates in 11 locations with more than one million square feet of industrial testing and lab facilities and 600 acres of farmland. Alberta Innovates employs 589 highly skilled scientists, business and technical professionals and has an annual operating budget of over $250 million. Learn more at albertainnovates.ca
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