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PROJECT REPORT: RETIREMENT LIVING & CARE HOMES
COMMUNITY ROLE
The ground floor features amenities accessible to local people, including a commercial cafe and activity spaces
good about the site” is how it is aligned north-south along the road, giving ideal east-west orientation for the apartments.” They are dual aspect, with the front door to the west, and generous private amenity space in the form of balconies with winter gardens to the east.
A broader focus
The explicitly intergenerational aspect of the scheme emerged a couple of years after the project’s inception, says Cameron, with a shift in the brief to housing younger occupants as well as older people. It was something of a surprise for the architects, and a requirement that grew out of the original brief for extra care housing – with community facilities and day care centre on the ground floor, and apartments above. She says that the robustness of the original design was evidenced by how suitable the apartments were. “Nothing needed to be changed, due to the apartments’ flexible design,” which was one key tenet of the “very clear brief” from the client. Again following the original brief, a series of activity spaces are distributed on the ground floor, for functions such as yoga classes and coffee
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mornings, and a large commercially- operated cafe provides meals for local people as well as residents. This was “always going to bring an intergenerational use to the ground floor,” says Cameron, adding that “from the outset” the client welcomed the chance to “invite the wider community into the building.”
Wellbeing to the fore
The highly influential 2009 HAPPI Report (compiled by the Housing Our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation), which included a former PRP director) was a key driver for the client and designers. Recommendations from the report were included in this project, such as generous space standards, lots of storage, open plan layouts, and maximised levels of natural light. The report’s launch was timely, and clients “really woke up and listened,” says Cameron; “the quality of housing for older people has improved so much as a result.” PRP, who specialise in the later living sector, put the health and wellbeing of residents at the centre of their design, and brought all of the HAPPI recommendations into its competition entry. The circulation is provided by open
ADF AUGUST 2022
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