Trinidad House, Dorset – Over 55’s Development

A courtyard scheme design served to maximise use of the site and provided a central private garden. A more public terrace to the south east combined with the scheme café and restaurant is arranged to overlook and integrate with the principal entrance into the Trinidad Village.

The scheme is fully compliant with HAPPI design guide’s 10 key elements such as: balconies and outdoor space, ‘single banked’ corridors providing natural light to circulation spaces, shared facilities and hubs, with shared spaces and sustainable fabric first energy-efficient design, open garden areas and private garden spaces.

The scheme was designed to meet BREEAM excellent and incorporated key sustainable design features including:

All apartments have been orientated to the south west and south east with significant roof overhangs or balconies above the principal windows. This provides passive solar heating during the winter whilst shading the windows during the summer when the sun is at its zenith.

MVHR (Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery) is installed in all apartments and to the communal areas, this together with a significant airtightness value of just 3 air changes, contributed to significantly reducing heating requirements.

The design included features to enable future enhancements including low pitched South facing roofs with standing seams to support additional PVs and an increased plant room space that will allow for the future installation of biomass or heat pump technologies.

We worked to engender a modern forward-looking quality, incorporating generous glazed screens to living rooms, glazed balconies and crisp-edged zinc cladding and roofing selected for its environmental credentials.

The scheme has the benefit of being part of a mixed community that can support adults with a variety of needs. It will support older people, people with memory loss and dementia, learning disability, physical disability.

Valuable concessionary services were made available to both residents and the wider community including: Halo Unisex Hair Salon, Foot Health Practice, Film Club, Guest Room and Counselling Services.

The landscaped gardens complement the design to provide a variety of experience, from the quiet tranquil Japanese garden to the north west, to the central courtyard garden offering a safe walking area with dry-riverbed features, arched bridge, water feature, seating areas and an abundance of sensory, dynamic and colourful plants.