Arnolds Way , Yatton – Dementia Care/Extra Care Home
- Client
- Housing 21 & Care
- Location
- Yatton, Somerset
- Project Leaders
- Andy Tansill Claire Samuel
- Size
- 60 units
Challenge
Quattro’s Care Home Architects were commissioned by Housing 21 & Care to design a new 3 storey Extra Care housing development consisting of 60 apartments within land at Arnold’s Way, Yatton. The site location commands a high profile within the Chestnut Park development, with main access roads to three sides of the building and the newly constructed local school to the north of the site. The challenge was to set the building away from the roads for noise and privacy reasons, whilst presenting an interesting street elevation on all fronts.
The Later Living apartments and supporting facilities, needed to provide residents with their own self-contained apartment to promote independence and also provide an inclusive community within and outside of the development. The franchised cafe/kitchen with dining area, lounge area, external sitting area together with the adjacent hairdressing salon, all serve as a resource to the wider locality.
The apartments provide flexible support from a care team and maintain a balanced community catering for those with high care needs to those with minimal care requirements, offering the possibility of a ‘home for life’.
- Services
Gallery
Solution
To achieve the communal needs of the Extra Care scheme, the apartments are designed to all link within a single building via wide and mainly naturally lit corridors. Communal spaces are strategically located on all corridor routes to encourage casual meetings and resting places. The principal communal are is clustered around the main entrance creating a vibrant social atmosphere, providing opportunities for residents, and visitors, to meet spontaneously as they come and go from the building. The main spaces can be sub-divided with the use of a folding sliding wall between lounge and the dining space or opened as required to suit larger events .
The Housing 21 progressive privacy strategy has been implemented whereby semi-private and private residential areas cannot be accessed from the general communal spaces without fob control.
The circulation around the building is intended to allow views to the outside and assist in wayfinding. An enriching external landscaping scheme consisting of a large variety of plants with added substantial seasonal interest. The plants are located to encourage residents to walk to destination points with seating.
Apartments are arranged to maximise southerly aspects and, where this is not possible, dual aspects or bay windows have been provided. The emphasis where possible of natural light, wayfinding, colour coding and colour contrasts and higher levels of illumination are designed to make communal and corridor spaces dementia friendly and less institutional.
The innovative design takes into consideration the development being surrounded by smaller scale housing. There are steps down from 3 storey to 2 storey in key locations so that it blends in with its surroundings. A crank introduced into the main corridor, helps to reduce the length of the building enabling it to better address the site boundary and allow more sunlight into the main central garden space. A mix of traditional and more contemporary design features break up large areas of walling to give the building a sympathetic smaller scale feel. The material mix of mellow reconstructed stone, brick and render together with the elevational relief achieved by the bay windows provide a sensitive mix, which is homely in scale for individual units and the mass of the building also, comfortably accommodating a 60 unit scheme within a traditional two storey housing development.
A fabric first approach has been taken in terms of Sustainable Design with PV solar panels on the roofs and energy and CO2 demands reduced through a well-insulated with low air-loss design.