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VIEWS SITE LINES
How human-centred design turns strategy into supportive spaces
Barbara Clarenz at AtkinsRéalis explores how human centred architecture translates care strategy into lived experience, creating supported housing that feels genuinely like home – not only for residents but also staff.
D
oes it feel like home? That question guided a supported living project in Horley, Surrey, from my fi rst visit to the former library site through to the fi rst residents moving in.
It sounds simple, but it is a demanding test. ‘Home’ is not a checklist or a regulatory threshold; it is a lived condition. It is independence that feels natural, privacy that does not need defending, and access to community without obligation. Critically it must work for the people who live there, and the people who provide care. When either is compromised, the sense of home quickly disappears.
However despite good intentions, too much specialist housing falls short of this test. It may be compliant but it can feel clinical, accessible yet isolating, technically competent, but emotionally thin. Sustainability is often treated in the same way – in the sense that it is measured, reported, but not always felt. For architects, the real challenge lies in translating care strategy into places that support everyday life with dignity, clarity and ease.
Designing independence without isolation Supported independent living sits at a careful balance point between autonomy and care. Push too far towards independence and residents can feel cut off; lean too hard into support and daily life begins to feel supervised. The brief for Horley, part of Surrey County Council’s Supported Independent Living Programme, was explicit: enable adults with learning disabilities and autistic people to live independently, within their local community, supported in a way that feels proportionate and respectful.
The response was architectural rather than symbolic. Horley was conceived as a small, legible neighbourhood rather than a single facility disguised as housing. Front doors are clear and recognisable, buildings are domestic in scale. Privacy is the default condition, with sociability offered by choice rather than design pressure.
This thinking led to two complementary residential typologies.
AT HOME IN HORLEY AtkinsRéalis designed the scheme to support people with learning disabilities including autism, to help them live more independently in a ‘proportionate’ and ‘respectful’ way
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ADF FEBRUARY 2026
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