PROJECT REPORT: RETIREMENT LIVING & CARE HOMES


37


Covid complications


Though the building reached practical completion before the pandemic began, it was not long after residents began moving in that the country was plunged into lockdown. This meant that there were only around 15 residents for much of the building’s early life.


While this was of course a blow to the


client, according to Miranda MacLaren, a director at Morris+Company, the threat of Covid actually served to highlight some of the project’s best attributes: “Residents at Belle Vue were some of the best placed in the country during lockdown – the array of activities available to them on site kept their social lives full, and the copious outdoor space provided proved invaluable.” In addition, all staff chose to isolate with them.


The range of onsite amenities were designed to encourage the target age group to stay active and social – and every room is connected to the outdoors, whether through windows, terraces or gardens. This was intended to allow less mobile residents to retain a sense of place and connection to nature, but MacLaren tells me that during


ADF SEPTEMBER 2021


Covid the layout and amenities “proved to more than just cater for them, but to be a priceless improvement in their experience.” She explains further: “The residents were able to explore a building full of secret and intimate spaces, leading up to a terrace that offers perhaps even better views than from the top of Hampstead Heath.” She continues: “You get this extraordinary feeling of space that’s almost unheard of in London.”


A home, not an institution MacLaren says that before the project’s inception, the practice wasn't known for housing,” with a 45-home development in Brentford being “by far the biggest” they’d designed in that typology. According to the architect, however, its being relatively new to the sector was key to why the practice was brought in: “When they saw the work we’d been doing in Brentford and on smaller, one-off houses, they could see the consideration and care, and a potential that by not having done it 1000 times, that we could look at things with fresh eyes.” This lack of preconception is part of what led to the practice to be resolute from


WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK


The council fought hard to keep the building down to a lower height than that which the footprint required to house these elements


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108