'The Design for Aging Review' continues to push all of us to challenge our beliefs about aging and our responsibility to create health-fostering therapeutic environments that assure the aging experience is a fulfilling one. The environment is a major factor of whether or not we are successful in assuring a quality of life for all of us. The DFAR process and award winners who serve as an inspiration for the next generation of senior living. In the early 1960's John Cumming and Elaine Cumming wrote a classic book that helped revolutionise the treatment of mentally ill people in state hospitals. The book is called 'Ego & Milieu: Theory and Practice of Environmental Therapy'. Cumming and Cumming discuss the 'therapeutic power of the total environment'. 'The environment itself should be the primary treatment as well as supporting or complementing other treatment'. The importance of 'normal', 'life-like environments' and the 'creation of neighbourhoods' are paramount. The bottom line is: environments dictate what we believe about seniors, the people who care for them, and those who visit. So, the challenge is to create therapeutic environments. The goal is to create environments that have purpose in mind with respect to the quality of life of those who live and work in them. Last year's edition of Design for Aging Review paved the way and now 'Design for Aging Review 2011' is overflowing with the Cumming and Cumming lens in mind. It is packed full of illustrations of the Cumming and Cumming principles.