care homes & sheltered housing project report
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‘Prospective buyers only need to be aged 55 or over to buy one of the 260 one and two- bedroom apartments’
The architects’ design concept for Hughenden Gardens Retirement Village “focuses on community and social inclusion”
Moving south
Until recently, the south of England was almost another country to ECCT but that is changing with the development of the Hughenden Gardens Retirement Village at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. The retirement village is being built on a six-hectare former
industrial site, which used to be home to a Broomwade and Compare factory making air compressors, and groundworks contractor McAuliffe carried out extensive remediation before the main building work could start on site with 800 continu- ous flight augur piles sunk. The village itself is being designed by Nicol Thomas and
built by Galliford Try Partnerships. Both companies have a long track record with ECCT. Nicol Thomas is designing two more retirement villages in the pipeline in Bedford and Bristol, while the Hughenden Gardens Retirement Village will be the eighth project that Galliford Try have worked on for the trust. Initially, the company’s building division worked for ECCT
but with the social housing element an increasingly vital part of projects, the partnerships division first came on board in a joint venture before the partnerships division began taking on projects alone. Galliford Try also has a track record of providing
accommodation in High Wycombe, albeit for a much younger market. Directly behind the retirement scheme is the
Hughenden Park Student Village, which Galliford Try’s building division built for Buckinghamshire New University in two phases, starting in 2009. The second phase opened in 2014 and added 180 new
ensuite bedrooms to the 234 built in the first stage. While the standard of accommodation provided for the students will be very different to that in the retirement village, both share similar design features. Kensington Taylor designed the student accommodation,
which features a green roof. Nicol Thomas opted for the same feature for the retirement village, with sedum specified.
Modern retirement living
Nicol Thomas were initially brought on board the project by the client, before being novated by Galliford Try Partnerships after the contractor agreed a design and build contract with ECCT. The practice’s design eschews old ideas of retirement housing for a more modern feel right from the core. Nicol Thomas director Wendy Griffin explains: “The
design concept focuses on community and social inclusion. The village centre is somewhere for residents to meet and make new friends, or engage in new skills and hobbies. This is located at the entrance into the scheme at ground level, so encouraging residents and friends to travel through it as they walk to their apartment. “The site area is circa six acres and so this, combined with
BUILDING PROJECTS
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