S3 E3 — The Code Ahead: A Preview to the 2026 FGI Residential Code

Introduction

In this episode of Between the Lines with FGI, John Williams and Marissa Lamperis Kastrinos introduce the first installment of a three-part series that focuses on each of the documents in the 2026 FGI Codes, starting with the Residential document.  

Marissa and John welcome Addie Abushousheh, Gaius G. Nelson, and John Shoesmith, the chairs of the Residential Document Group of the 2026 Health Guidelines Revision Committee (HGRC), who provide an inside look at the key changes to the 2026 FGI Code for Planning and Design of Residential Care and Support Settings, as well as their inspiration for leading these changes.  

The 2026 FGI Residential Code provides baseline requirements for the planning, design, and construction of nursing homes, hospice facilities, assisted living settings, residential behavioral and mental health treatment facilities, long-term residential substance use disorder facilities, settings for individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities, adult day care and adult day health care facilities, wellness centers, and outpatient rehabilitation therapy facilities. This episode discusses additions and revisions to the 2026 FGI Residential Code, including clearer language addressing dining spaces, resident room capacity, and small-scale environments.

 
This trio of experts shed light on the revision process of the FGI Codes/Guidelines through the HGRC and industry perspectives that shaped the outcomes. They discuss the major shift in how information is delivered through FGI’s new approach to providing both code requirements and advisory guidance. 

About Our Guests

Addie Abushousheh, PhD, EDAC, Assoc. AIA 

Addie Abushousheh is principal and CEO of AdvantAges by Design and a nationally respected organizational and environmental gerontologist. Her work focuses on aligning people, places, process, and purpose to strengthen performance across health care and senior living organizations. She brings more than two decades of interdisciplinary experience spanning architectural design, applied research, workforce systems, and organizational strategy. 

Dr. Abushousheh serves as chair of the Residential Document Group of the 2026 HGRC, is a leader for the AIA Design for Aging (DFA) Knowledge Community, and holds adjunct faculty positions at several universities. Through her consulting practice helps organizations translate insight and evidence into operational clarity, environmental quality, and measurable outcomes. 

With expertise ranging from pre-architectural programming to regulatory strategy, workforce alignment, and applied research, Dr. Abushousheh is a trusted advisor to executives, design teams, policymakers, and foundations. Widely published and a frequent national speaker, she guides organizations in building environments and systems that support people in thriving across the lifespan.

Gaius G. Nelson, RA, EDAC  

Gaius Nelson is president of Nelson-Tremain Partnership, an architectural practice focused on improving design solutions for older people. In 1987, he pioneered the first skilled nursing household/neighborhood in the U.S. at Evergreen Retirement Community, and in 2019, designed the nation’s first WELL™-certified Assisted Living at The Views of Marion. He works diligently to promote non-institutional, resident-focused environments for living through design, education, and policy advocacy.  

Gaius shares his expertise through frequent presentations and by serving on civic and industry committees, including long-standing involvement with the HGRC since 1998. In recognition of his enduring impact on innovation and regulatory reform, he was named the 2025 Center for Health Design Changemaker Award recipient. 

John Shoesmith, FAIA, NCARB, EDAC, LEED AP, Principal, Perkins Eastman 

John Shoesmith is a principal at Perkins Eastman and a leader in the firm’s senior living design practice. His dedication to design for aging was shaped by his grandmother’s struggle with dementia, inspiring him to create environments that promote authenticity, success, and purpose. A recognized thought leader, he is a frequent panelist at conferences and has received awards for design excellence, best practices, and advocacy. 

In 2024, John was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows for his significant contributions to design for aging. He uses evidence-based design practices and champions regulatory improvements through his work with FGI as a steering committee member and chair of the Residential Document Group of the 2026 HGRC. 

Acronyms Mentioned 

RDG – Residential Document Group 

AHCA – The American Health Care Association

NCAL – The National Center for Assisted Living

AHJ – Authorities Having Jurisdiction 

HGRC – Health Guidelines Revision Committee

Take a deeper dive into the 2026 FGI Residential Code

An on-demand webinar is available at FGI University that breaks down the specific updates mentioned in this episode, plus additional context and practical takeaways, directly from the chairs of the Residential Document Group of the 2026 Health Guidelines Revision Committee (HGRC). 

Earn CEUs Anytime with FGI University and Between the Lines with FGI: 

Gain even more insight with the extended version of this episode while earning continuing education units (CEUs)! Head over to FGIUniversity.org our educational platform for the FGI Codes/Guidelines, and explore CEU- and HSW-approved audio courses designed to make earning credits effortless—perfect for learning on the go.  

To make it even better, use promo code BTL10 at checkout to get 10% off any Between the Lines with FGI course and the on-demand webinar for the 2026 FGI Residential Code. Listen, learn, and save today.  

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Sponsored by

American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE): Optimizing health care facilities

 

 

 

Transcript

Sponsorship Recognition 

[00:05] Marissa Lamperis Kastrinos: This episode of Between the Lines with FGI is brought to you by the American Society for Health Care Engineering, optimizing health care facilities. 

Introduction 

[00:15] John Williams: Welcome to Between the Lines with FGI, a podcast brought to you by FGI. In this podcast series, we invite you to listen in on casual conversations related to health residential care, design, and construction. Joining us today is FGI’s very own Marissa Lamperis Kastrinos, FGI’s brand new director of education. 

[00:35] Marissa: And I am pleased to be joined by John Williams, FGI’s vice president of content and outreach, and the chair of the 2026 Health Guidelines Revision Committee, which is also known as the HGRC. This is a multidisciplinary consensus body consisting of over 100 subject matter experts, including clinicians, administrators, architects, engineers, and representatives from authorities having jurisdiction that are responsible for approving the final FGI Codes and Guidelines manuscripts before publication during a four-year cycle. That is impressive. 

[01:15] John W.: So very, very long. That is a long cycle, but I totally agree with you. We, at FGI, especially me, are incredibly grateful for all the time and dedication that each of these HGRC members gives to us over that four-year cycle to maintain and improve the documents. Marissa, these are people at the top of their game, and I’m always humbled just to be in the same room as them.  

[01:37] Marissa: Speaking of the HGRC and the FGI Codes/Guidelines, we actually have an exciting announcement specific to Between the Lines with FGI. We are embarking on a three-part series introducing the 2026 version of the FGI Codes. 

[01:54] John W.: In these three episodes, we are dedicating an episode each to the hospital, residential, and outpatient documents of the 2026 FGI Codes, and we’re speaking directly to the tri-chairs of the HGRC who led the revision process for that particular document. Throughout these three episodes, you’re going to gain inside access to the significant changes as well as the conversations that happen that made these changes come about. if you’re even further curious, there’s opportunity to learn more. Right, Marissa? 

[02:27] Marissa: There sure is. So. For those of you who are eager to learn more about the document-specific updates, you can find an extended version of this episode and a corresponding webinar crafted and led by our guest today on FGI’s new educational platform, FGIUniversity.org. This is the perfect opportunity to gain your CEUs while strengthening your knowledge of the 2026 FGI Codes for Planning and Design. 

(music fades out) 

[02:56] John W.: Today, we’re diving into the 2026 FGI Code for Planning and Design of Residential Care and Support Settings. Joining us today are the tri-chairs of the Residential Document Group for the 2026 cycle, and that is Addie Abushousheh, John Shoesmith, and Gaius Nelson. Addie Abushousheh, PhD, is the principal and CEO of AdvantAges by Design, is a nationally recognized organizational and environmental gerontologist with over two decades of interdisciplinary experience. She helps health care and senior living organizations align people, places, and processes, and it just amazes me how she is able to bring research and ideas together in this design space and contribute to facilities that really support residential care. 

[03:45] Marissa: Absolutely agree with you. Now let’s talk a little bit about John Shoesmith. John is the chair of the Residential Document Group, and during his day job, he is a principal at Perkins Eastman. He leads the firm’s senior living design practice and advocates for environments that foster authenticity and purpose for older adults. Inspired by his grandmother’s dementia journey, he applies evidence-based design and champions regulatory improvements. Through his leadership with the FGI in 2024, he was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows for his significant contributions in design for aging. 

[04:25] John W.: Such a well-deserved award. I’m so proud of John as a fellow Washingtonian and a leader in Washington state in health care as well. Last but not least, we have. Gaius Nelson, president of Nelson-Tremaine Partnership. He’s a leading architect dedicated to creating non-institutional resident-focused environments for older adults, which is what we all want. He pioneered the first skilled nursing household neighborhood in the US and also designed the nation’s very first, WELL™-certified assisted living community. He’s a frequent speaker and longtime member of the FGI revision committee; he was also honored by the Center for Health Design with the 2025 Design Changemaker Award, specifically for his impact on innovation in healthy aging, and, I’ve got to say, just being an awesome guy. 

Guest Introduction 

[05:15] John W.: Addie, Gaius, John, thank you so much for joining us today. Can’t wait to talk about all of the things that you discovered during your conversations on the residential document. 

[05:26] John Shoesmith: Thank you, John. 

[05:27] Gaius Nelson: You are welcome. 

[05:27] Addie Abushoesheh: Our pleasure. 

Inspiration to get involved with the Health Guidelines Revision Committee (HGRC) 

[05:28] John W.: So first of all, what we like to do with our guest is just kind of get a sense of what brings you to this place. I’m really curious what inspired each of you to take part in leading this Residential Document Group for 2026. Gaius, I’ll ask you first. How did we have the ultimate luck of attracting you to this effort? 

[05:51] Gaius: Well, I think I’m probably one of the old timers here. I’ve been involved in the Guidelines since 1998. Actually, before that, I was introduced to the Guidelines by Marty Cohen, one of the originators of the Guidelines, back years ago. We were looking at some modifications to the nursing home requirements I’ve been involved in, some innovative nursing home designs, along with some creative and innovative sponsors.  

We were looking at a way to help institutionalize the newer ideas that were coming out because regulators didn’t know what to do with them, and the Guidelines themselves looked like they were a good tool to be able to do this. 

[06:31] Gaius: So, I put in a whole slew of proposals one year, and, uh, a lot of those proposals ended up being adopted. A lot of ’em got thrown in the trash bin. But after that, I was invited to come and actually participate in the document. this year. Took the, uh, opportunity to become part of the leadership team on the residential document. 

[06:57] John W.: No good deed goes unpunished. So that was way back when the Guidelines were just one document that covered hospitals, residential, outpatient, all in one big book, right?  

[07:08] Gaius: That’s right. One not-so-big book, actually. It’s really become much more in-depth and detailed, and a lot of innovations have happened over the years. It’s good to be able to have some guidance with regard to guiding new designers and everybody in terms of how the Guidelines can help them in doing their designs. 

[07:29] John W.: Addie, how about you? 

[07:31] Addie: So, I was asked by Jane Rhode to have breakfast at a conference, and this was shortly after the 2014 edition had been initiated, which was separating the residential design Guidelines from hospital and outpatient, and I tease Jane about being the mother of the Residential Guidelines, similar to Daenerys, the mother of dragons. And when you have the mother of dragons coming to you and saying, “Not only I want you to be a committee member, but I want you to be a tri-chair because of the experience that you bring from architecture, applied gerontology, and research to the mix,” you just do not say no. So, I got thrown in the deep end immediately but was reassured that John [Shoesmith] was also a tri-chair. So, between Jane, John, and myself, I would have a little bit of a life raft. 

[08:29] John W.: John, how about you? 

[08:31] John S.: Well, Jane also approached me, but she was a little bit more subtle. She said, “You know, we’ve got this code book that we’re working on and we really could use some help talking about the functional program.” This was in 2011, so this was when we were separating the residential document out from the hospital book at the time. 

With this current cycle, the big thing that kept me involved was twofold. First, getting to work with Gaius and Addie, but second, we had a big parking lot from the last cycle. Issues that came up and whether it was COVID or other types of things that we had pushed off that we didn’t feel like we could give due process to, in the last cycle, but knew that we needed to address in this cycle. 

Conversations and goals early on in the 2026 cycle  

[09:18] John W.: John, you talked about parking lots that we had at the beginning of the cycle, and I know this whole concept of enforceability and adoptability was one of one of the key things that we knew we wanted to do. Gaius. What do you remember about those, conversations early on in the start of the cycle? 

[09:37] Gaius: Actually, I was the chair of our internal committee dealing with adoptability and enforceability, and that included all of the AHJs [Authorities Having Jurisdiction] on our group. And, this year, there was actually a concerted effort, to bringing in additional HGRC members from a variety of different backgrounds and perspectives and … and quite a bit of that. You know, came from the authority having jurisdiction area. 

[10:02] John S.: We really took a concerted effort when we were forming the group this time, to focus in on those areas that we felt we were maybe lacking a little bit from an enforceability and adoptability standpoint. So, we really tried to actively recruit folks from some key places.  

We doubled the number of AHJs on our group. We had no clinicians to speak of, and so we added a number of clinicians to help us. And on the operator side, we felt it was really important to have good representation from leading age, from AHCA [the American Health Care Association] and NCAL [the National Center for Assisted Living] and that, and so we really tried to bolster, participation from those groups in a way that gave us about 50 percent of our membership actually from those disciplines. 

The group with the AHJs, you know, we had a lot of language that was. Words like “minimize” and “maximize.” These are the kind of words that really don’t make a code official’s life easy. How does one maximize mobility? Well, I mean, I always wanted to be a basketball superstar too, but somebody’s not gonna maximize me to be able to do that. 

Going through the document and finding those types of phrases was really one of the first tasks that we, went through then the other major issue, we … we were looking at, had to do with how some of these s interfere or allow us to create small-scale environments, and a lot of the requirements within the document envisioned a larger facility with centralized laundry and bathing systems and all those sorts of things. We were looking at the language and saying, “we modify this in a way that doesn’t preclude someone from creating this small house model or does that make it more difficult for them to do that than it ought to be?” So, you know, a lot of our focus on adoptability was to build in enough flexibility into the requirements that. It would apply potentially to all scales of environment. 

[12:15] Addie: With that in mind, like that whole language piece became really a central point with adoptability. It was a case of, “Did we mean what we say?” and we really needed to say what we meant, and part of what we needed to do was stop using terms interchangeably.  

So, we had one group singularly dedicated toward basically scrubbing the document of any word having to do with access, accessible, and accessibility. And then that got further into inclusive design, universal design, barrier-free design, because we really used all of those words pretty interchangeably. So, we had to go back and decide what did we mean we used each specific word, and then do an audit of the entire residential design Guidelines book for every single one of those words. 

[13:10] John S.: I mean, I think we moved a mountain. We’ve talked a little bit about the word choices and some of those underlying pieces. We also organized the book so that I think it’s a lot easier to actually go in and use, whether you’re an AHJ, an architect, or a provider. And I think we still have a little bit of work to do on that, but I think there’s been a major shift in getting us in a good place. 

[13:32] Addie: I’m going to like dial back here to the 30,000-foot level. Changing the name to building code is one of the biggest favors I think we’ve done for ourselves. And then the language with the separation of what had previously been appendix material into the Handbook. We really leaned pretty heavily on a lot of that information in the residential design Guidelines had to really dig and have defensible methods for making sure to incorporate that information as a minimum standard into the, the building codes. 

The transition from the Appendix to the FGI Handbooks   

[14:09] John W.: Just out of curiosity, do you remember a specific example any of you where you saw the appendix language? Go away, and you go, “Oh, we need to write something different in the code because we’re not going to have that appendix piece.” 

[14:22] Gaius: Well, we came up with an issue kind of right towards the end of, “How are we going to deal with these tables that we have at the end of each chapter, which is in the appendix, and really explains all the different?” Building typologies that we’re talking about, and it was, you know, we didn’t want to make it mandatory because that eliminates a lot of flexibility for people in terms of, you know, do we have a small building, a medium, a large, you know, what’s our model of care? But we had these appendices that had a lot of information in them that we wanted to make sure this wasn’t lost. 

[14:57] John W.: Absolutely. This is really something that’s meant to help people innovate and understand the different size and scale and scope. Is that right? Can you give me a nickel tour of how that’s important and valuable to the whole conversation? 

[15:11] Addie: So, what we ended up, boiling these rather large appendix tables down to was for primary characteristics that were related to setting types, and we gave them titles. So that’s one of the characteristics. But then we looked at the typical number of occupants. We are not restricting number of occupants that you can or can’t have. We’re just saying, on average, “Here’s what these models tend to have.” 

We talked about the service provision type. “Was it more likely to be centralized or decentralized?” and “What did that look like more specifically?” Then we talked about any distinguishing features. So, from a setting type perspective, we came up with homes – residential models, household models, freestanding or interconnected, or neighborhood models, traditional institutional model, and then the apartment style community model. Then, we covered each one of those successively in terms of occupants, centralization of services, and distinguishing characteristics. 

[16:25] John S.: You know, we talked before about laundry, as an example. OK. And, previously, you could infer that all these setting types needed a commercial laundry, and that is not something that actually is true. I think by establishing this table, we gave ourselves the ability to say in the charging language, in the chapters. If you’re in a residential assisted living model, you’re only required to do personal laundry … laundry, so you can see the personal laundry requirements. It gave us the flexibility to do that, having the requirements kind of more fit the setting types.  

[17:02] John W.: Yeah, so it sounds like it’s in Part 1 under the functional program now, and all of these settings and building typologies are kind of laid out there to help people design their functional program. 

[17:13] John S.: Right. We’re asking people to declare a major. We’re asking them to say, “Hey, this is what we’re doing here,” right? And that’s only going to help everybody. That’s going to help the architect, that’s going to help the owner, and that’s going to help the AHJ when they’re looking at the project from an objective standpoint. 

Residential changes with great interest and importance from the tri-chairs during the 2026 cycle     

[17:31] Marissa: So, I’d like to hear from each of you as you were working during this four-year revision cycle, what was a topic or a couple of topics that you were the most excited to see added for 2026 or revised from previous editions? I’ll start with you, John. 

[17:48] John S.: I don’t know that it’s excited as much as I felt really connected to, in my answer. My father-in-law had health issues. He performed peritoneal dialysis in his home, and he had the occasion to enter long-term care. It was surprising to me how ill-equipped some of the places that he went were prepared to actually have him continue with that, so I wrote some proposals early on in the cycle, and we pulled together a subject matter expert panel to take a look at our dialysis chapter. We really only had requirements in the nursing home chapter. They were a little scant, at best. 

We pulled together some proposed language that would add some requirements for when providers plan to accept people who self-perform peritoneal dialysis, but also that looked at nursing home settings where they have a dialysis den. This is a dialysis facility that’s attached to the nursing home that serves the residents only, and really round out the requirements that were there that made these, dens, really work, and give folks an idea from a, enforcibility standpoint, what the minimum requirements actually should be there, but also to make them, a distinct place different from where you serve outpatients.  

If a nursing home is serving outpatients, then the requirements in the outpatient document need to apply. But if they’re not, if they’re just serving, people from within their own building, then we have an equal set of requirements that guided folks to the minimum standards for that type of setting. 

[19:32] Marissa: Absolutely. Gaius, how about you? What was something you felt was super valuable to update? Like what were you the most looking forward to? 

[19:41] Gaius: Well, I … I think the one valuable thing was our idea of a residential assisted living, and I don’t know that our document really reflected appropriately what the intent was. you know, these are, actually.  

Often, a house on the street somebody buys, does a little bit of renovation to and provides a small group home of assisted living for residents, within a house essentially. Some of the chapters require things like, “Toilet directly accessible from a bedroom.” You don’t get that in all of these spaces. If you’re purpose-building from scratch, you know, that’s a possibility. But that’s just one example of some of the requirements that may not be appropriate for these small-scale environments, and also with newer models, different types of co-housing, and things. You have more shared functions, much like you’d have in a home, so trying to add that clarification and flexibility into the document so that smaller-scale environments, can be created. 

[20:50] Marissa: Definitely. And Addie, what about you? What were you the most eager to see updated or added for 2026? 

[21:00] Addie: So, there was one parking lot item that I was particularly excited about. In the 2022 edition, we made a significant effort to really talk about food preparation in different kitchen types, and then, we need corresponding dining areas for those kitchen types. That was also one of these things when we knew that the appendix material was going away, and we had square footage recommendations that resided singularly in the appendix. There was going to be a concerted effort to make sure to provide that minimum guidance above, but we ended up with seven different types of dining areas. Two of which actually have the minimum square footage associated. So, we’ve got central dining, decentralized, but then we’ve got retail, dining, and household dining, social activity, outpatient therapy, and then a warming serving. Dining option as well because we really are covering the gamut of residential health care and sports settings. 

[22:02] Marissa: What was maybe a topic or something specific that was very daunting to take on or like a heavy lift, but you knew it was important and the change had to happen for 2026? 

[22:15] John S.: Well, the one that’s been sitting out there forever is the resident room capacity, and so I think that has been kind of the big one underlying the whole effort this year. It’s been coming for a long time, when we hit COVID. We had some hard proposals that came out after COVID, but we’re kind of in the middle of the 2022 cycle, so we didn’t feel like we could give them the full due process that was required. 

And so, they were put in the parking lot up until this cycle. We received, I can’t remember how many it was, but it was probably a half dozen proposals, around resident room, capacity, and so, you know, I think that’s the one we’ve had to take a really hard look at. 

[22:55] Addie: Well, I want to highlight the way in which we took a look at it. There were many people who were in the residential design Guidelines and those of us in research were able to look across and between setting types to look at infection rates, mortality functioning, and profitability. Other things related to that, to also supplement the knowledge and form. Actually, a survey that we administered for anyone would provide insight.  

We were looking primarily for what is the industry currently doing. What is the best practice, and what’s the ideal number to try to get to? And I think that ideal number for us was something that we dealt with right up to the end. 

[23:50] John S.: And that was a big shift, that we had kind of later our discussions about it and really pegging it to the number of resident rooms, as you say, versus the number of people, you know, there were a number of really good concerns that were brought up by folks along the way, and it’s something that we deliberated long and hard about. 

The first thing that came up was this idea of, you know, well, what if you’ve got people who wanna live together? You’ve got to leave an option for them, if it were sisters, if it was a couple, then yeah, there should be a provision made. And so right away, we knew we weren’t going with a hundred percent of resident rooms. We knew we were going with a number slightly less.  

And so, I think a flag was planted at 80 percent people originally, and not rooms. Through the comment period in that, we had surprisingly few comments about that number, and so it held and continued through the comment process, and it’s why we ended up with the 90 percent of resident rooms because if you looked at 90 percent resident rooms, it really ends up being about 80 percent of the people. Do the math out, you know, that’s the first stance is it’s 90 percent of the resident rooms shall be designed as single resident rooms, and that we recognize that we should give an exception that was written in the code that if the person who is coming to the project, the provider has a necessity for fewer than 90 percent rooms, and they can demonstrate that that would be undue harm to them, providing that the authority having jurisdiction has the ability to grant, a lesser number in that.  

Part of that came out of concerns from the AHCA and NCAL folks on our group and in comments that we received back from people, who were worried about Medicaid funding. So, we felt, adding the subpar two to this section, that gave this flexibility, would allow an AHJ the ability to take that into consideration. 

[25:57] Gaius: You know, the early Part 1 issues surrounding renovation is something that a lot of people were confused about. Um, most of our comments that we received were people were misinterpreting that they have to make all of their existing facilities meet the requirement. So, this clarification in Part 1 is going to help us in the next cycle down the road because it’ll, it’s more clear to people that no, just because the FGI Code is changing doesn’t mean you have to follow the new code, until you meet certain thresholds within the renovation part of Part 1. So, you know, the existing homes that are out there that are multi-bedded, um, nursing homes, they can stay multi-bedded nursing homes. 

[26:45] John S.: There was some undue confusion about when capacity requirements applied or how they applied. We had a section right after the resident room capacity in the nursing home chapter, and that was resident room capacity requirements for renovation. That was supposed to be something that was helpful, and I think it actually just added confusion, and when AHCA and NCAL talked to us about creating that language in Part 1 around getting clarity on the renovation piece, it was clear that we needed to strike the resident room requirements for renovation. This isn’t a … a code for new renovation—it’s a code for new construction. Having the renovation for part of that as a separate line item piece I think just caused everybody a little bit of scratching their heads. 

[27:48] Addie: Yeah. 

[27:50] John S.: I think, though, it’s a recognition that with this document, new care setting types are evolving all the time, and that we’re constantly looking for folks who are familiar with these new setting types to come forward and talk to us about them so that we can evaluate whether or not we need to provide some minimum standard base for that. 

The benefits of the FGI Handbooks  

[28:12] Marissa: I know many people who come to the FGI Codes/Guidelines do so, not just to understand what the minimum standards are, but they really want to know the why behind it and find resources and tools to make stronger decisions with confidence. I’d love to open it up to gain your perspective on a new approach that I think will really help with this, which is the 2026 FGI Handbooks for Planning and Design. 

[28:35] Gaius: I think the Handbook really is going to be a clarifying element for the entire document. I mean, in the past, we were always kind of caught in the middle between, “Are we a code, or are we a guideline?” You know, we want to have all this information to help people understand what the options are out there in designing environments for residential settings, but it was kind of schizophrenic, you know. There’s requirements, and there’s appendix, and you know, what was this document? And I think splitting these up into a code and a handbook, we really have something where the code can be the code, which is a minimum standard.  

But the Handbook really starts to provide all the educational opportunities and people to see what options are out there. I think a lot of what happens is, people only have their example of one facility that they operate or live within. And you know, having the Handbooks is going to really open up possibilities for people, that they didn’t realize were out there. And I think that that’s really gonna be a huge advantage for the entire field.  

[29:55] Addie:  One of the comments that one of our RDG members made a couple of cycles back, he says, “You know, I give this to who have just come into the firm. I point them to that appendix language. Now you can give them the Handbook that helps them to understand kind of the pressures that are taking place within the space.” 

[30:10] John S.: Well, and it’s … it’s the quickest way for us to communicate intent, right? we’ve got these requirements and, um, you look at the Handbook, and you know, much like other, code documents that you look where they put out a handbook, if you don’t quite understand where we were going. You can see, what the intent was behind the piece as well. 

Wrap-up 

[30:30] Marissa: Speaking of your perspective, John, Gaius, Addie, it was fantastic talking to you today and hearing your unique outlook, not just on the residential updates for the 2026 launch, but also the exciting things happening at FGI. So, thank you for being such a big part of it. And again, thanks for joining us today. 

[30:41] John W.: Looking for more on the residential updates from Addie, John, and Gaas. You are in luck. You can find an extended version of this episode and a corresponding webinar at FGIUiversity.org. You can also find a multitude of courses related to the 2026 FGI Codes at that same location. Marissa, should we give listeners a special prize for listening to this podcast? 

[31:02] Marissa: Do you even have to ask? Go for it. 

[31:06] John W.: Excellent. Save 10 percent on any purchase at FGI University with a promo code, “BTL10,” which also works on the annual all-access pass. 

[31:12] Marissa: If you’re interested in sharing your content ideas, or even sponsoring between the lines of FGI, we would love to hear from you. You can email us directly at podcast@fgiguidelines.org. Thank you for joining us today, and Happy New Year!  

[31:20] John W.: Also, since it’s December 31st, New Year’s Eve, and it’s kind of quiet around the office, I went on one of those generative AI applications just to look and see what it thought HGRC was. Do you want to hear? 

[31:29] Marissa: Yes! 

[31:32] John W.: So, the first one, it got “Health Guidelines Revision Committee” right, which I was impressed by, but it gave me a lot of other random collections of words.  

The first one being, “Hamsters Governing Random Chaos,” which, I mean, if an outsider to the HGRC and you come to one of our meetings and you see all the activity going on, it does look like chaos. It’s not random, it’s very organized, and people are having great conversations, but it probably looks like random chaos.  

But the last one, Marissa, is the one that I really like. It’s the “Hallway Gossip Research Club,” and I’m not going to say that every proposal and every change starts this way, but so many times, a proposal or a change to the document starts where two people are coming together at a conference or a job site or a design charette and they look at something, they say, “Hey, this is, this is a really good idea that we either need to add or change or edit in the Guidelines so it accurately reflects what’s going on in the real world.” What do you think? 

[32:59] Marissa: I’m a fan, and listeners, I do have to vouch for John. These were totally AI-generated  

[33:05] John W.: Should probably wrap for the year. See you next year, everybody! 

(music fades out)