01 - There’s No Place Like Home: Inclusive Residential Design for Ageing in Place

University of Cambridge Studio Project

January - June 2023

The word home means something different to Everyone. For many ageing people it can be crucial as a familiar space that provides comfort and security. But this sense of home is taken away when relocating to a care facility, and yet, as a society, we continue to marginalise the elderly, making it all the more challenging for them to remain in their own homes. With care facilities over-crowded and understaffed, we must reflect on the ways that residential design could delay or even avoid the need for relocation. My final-year project, ‘There’s No Place Like Home’, explores how a more inclusive design process could help elderly people to age in place, and how this could be mutually beneficial for other household groups.

Using the retrofit of a run-down estate in Basildon as an opportunity to address this issue, the project first looks at a larger neighbourhood scale, focusing especially on the issues of disorientation and isolation. It then zooms in on an intermediate scale, encouraging smaller clusters of neighbourliness through shared outdoor courtyards.

Rather than building new estates exclusively for ageing people, which further marginalises them, the project questions how a new scheme can incorporate the needs of the various household groups already residing there. Hence, on a residential scale the project introduces three types of accommodation. These then have a series of shared spaces creating a partial co-living scheme to encourage a multi-generational family-like environment and the sharing of everyday tasks.

The aim of the project is to encourage a design process that goes further than the guidelines, with ageing people at its core rather than as an afterthought. For me, the project was largely guided by my experience of living with someone with dementia, which I paired with the requirements of design guidelines. I believe that the project demonstrates a potential for architects to help the elderly to remain living independently or assisted from home, in turn improving quality of life and relieving pressure on care facilities.

Examination Result: 79

Site Analysis: The Five Links Estate, Basildon

The project begins with an analysis of an existing housing estate that reflects the ways that many developments are not suited to the ageing population. The Five Links Estate in West Basildon, consists of 1400 homes. Approaching the site, it’s clear why it is referred to as a ‘brick maze’ by locals. There is very little distinguishing one courtyard from another, resulting in a labyrinth of residences that lack a sense of place and visual cues to aid navigation. The repetition of brick courtyards, tunnels and dead ends makes circulation more disorientating.

Another key issue is a lack of variety in housing types, all being designed based on the nuclear family. Each unit has a living room and kitchen on the ground floor, and 2 or 3 bedrooms at first floor level. Each house then has a private garden, but the site visit suggested that these are largely unmaintained. This model not only overlooks the needs of ageing people, but also other household groups and family units.

Whilst the site is built up of several iterations and combinations of courtyards, it can be summarised by three courtyard forms. Within these iterations, the same formula is used across the site (see following page).

A large green paddock runs through the centre of the site, but a harsh boundary and parking isolates it from the residences. Despite the sheer scale of the development, there is little encouraging a more proximate method of socialising amongst neighbours. Studies show that people find it difficult to coordinate and form relationships in a neighbourhood of this size. Hence, encouraging different scales of social interaction will be another key driver of the intervention.

Alongside the ‘brick maze’ nature of the site, lack of maintenance has lead to anti-social behaviour within the neighbourhood. Archive images from the 70’s demonstrate the key role of intermediate spaces such as the courtyards for community use. However, with the councils increased neglect of the neighbourhood, these have now become dumping grounds and crime hot-spots. A local stated that ‘the council have washed their hands of us and hope we will keep quiet and put up with it.’

The sites state of disrepair is highlighted by a resident who said ‘Elderly people like my parents are finding it harder to go around the estate on their mobility scooters because of the state of the paths.’

A Communal Planted Landscape

To re-direct circulation away from the sequence of courtyards, gardens will be removed and replaced with a more open, shared planted landscape, with paths to make the site easier to navigate. This strategy also enables the courtyards to take up a more intimate shared function without privatising them.

Some of the planting will consist of fragrant vegetation to create a landscape of memory association. Other areas will form grass for activities; vegetable and herb gardens; and woodlands that require little maintenance. Residents will choose the level of maintenance they are able to provide for their assigned planting area, and tasks will be distributed accordingly by a neighbourhood committee.

Social Interactions at a Neighbourhood Scale

A core aspect of the project is to encourage different scales of social interaction, which in the broader site will be achieved by integrating shops and amenities within the familiarity of the site to make everyday life more accessible. It will help to form habits where people within the wider community regularly bump into each other. These will expand from areas of the site that have already begun to undertake commercial or community functions.

A planted landscape inspired by the work of Piet Oudolf. The landscape design plays on ideas of memory association and sensory stimulation as a subtle way of distinguishing different areas in the site.

The site will have two paths differentiated through textural qualities and a subtle change in colour as cues. The continuous path that cuts through the planted landscape always leads back to the site, encouraging a more experiential form of circulation.

The existing site is mostly pedestrianised, so the road will be simplified into one main route and a central parking area to reduce dead ends and traffic. This will also provide a bus route through the site, alleviating the pressure to drive.

The linear path will connect the courtyards and other areas of the site in axial directions. Where paths meet the peripheries of the site, the walkway will be sheltered to act as a cue and provide spaces to rest when walking.

Clusters of Neighbourliness: The Courtyard

The courtyards will provide a more intimate scale of social interaction, with a gradient of shelters providing smaller community hubs across the site. With time these spaces may adopt a specific community function or become associated with a particular activity. Courtyards that open to the centre will be left unsheltered to allow the greenery to diffuse into the residential areas. Others will have partial or retractable shelters. In some courtyards the roof will be completely covered, providing an outdoor space for residents in rainier months. By inhabiting these spaces, the courtyard becomes an extension of the surrounding residences for shared use. The courtyard roofs, alongside colour coding achieved through the timber cladding, will also form a part of the strategy to aid with navigation. This will give each courtyard an individual character to act as markers across the site.

The project explores the residential scale through a unit that combines all three courtyard iterations, creating a prototype for the development of the rest of the site. To cater for a variety of household groups, the existing units will be reconfigured to provide three types of accommodation as well as common houses, each with different levels of co-living. Minor demolitions of timber stud partitions are a key strategy for all reconfigurations, minimizing the frequency of cramped spaces and narrow corridors to reduce disorientation and use space more efficiently. A portion of units will become reconfigured three bedroom homes for larger families. The two bedroom flat will provide an intermediate residence. I used the model to imagine how a single parent household may occupy this space. On the ground floor, some units will be converted into single bedroom, accessible apartments. The interior finishes of walls and floors follow a similar principle to the master-plan in terms of subtle colour schemes and changes in floor texture to help characterise and distinguish different rooms, a strategy based on the dementia design guidelines.

Accessible Studio Apartments

In this type of accommodation, the reconfigurations not only focus on opening up cramped spaces, but also ensures a clear line of sight between the bedroom and the accessible bathroom, a guideline which is essential to helping with issues such as disorientation at night and incontinence. Basic kitchen facilities and a small lounge provide the option for more independence, with the common house offering a broader range of shared facilities. These bedrooms are linked directly to the winter garden, with one way glass for privacy when the sliding doors are closed. Internal lightweight sliding doors offer different levels of privacy, and residents with memory loss can choose to remove barriers between rooms entirely.

A Shared Library of Things

The Common house

Rectangular units will become common houses. The ground floor will offer spaces for cooking, eating, a shared laundry room and an accessible bathroom. Shared by all residents, different generations can learn from and support each other with everyday tasks. It accesses the winter garden through an existing opening (previously used to access the gardens),

Shared Kitchen and Dining Space which can be used to control internal temperature through the year. The first floor will have a smaller kitchen bar and a multifunctional community space. I imagine this to be a room where neighbours can have meetings; people can carry out hobbies that they don’t space for at home; children can play and learn together.

Proposed Ground Floor Plan: Common house

The Winter Garden Corridor

The addition of a winter garden corridor, which meets the planted landscape through a timber and polycarbonate façade, connects the different residences and common house. My own experience living with someone with dementia drove the design of this space with the idea of togetherness through shared experience and spontaneous interactions as people move from one space to another, relieving the pressure of conversation, whilst reducing isolation.

A sliding shading system with panels of different translucency and perforations will allow residents to control privacy and lighting. During the day, shadows cast patterns on the brick façade, whilst at night, the building becomes lantern-like, projecting light onto the paths.

A New Building Envelope

The insulation strategy retains the existing structure where possible for material preservation. Pour fill insulation will be injected between the inner and outer skins of the existing cavity walls, with a layer of hemp insulation added between the brick and timber cladding, forming a continuous envelope around the building. The winter garden also contributes to the insulating strategy. The polycarbonate façade meets the new warm roof build up, where the existing trusses will be retained with a new layer of insulation and a clay tile finish.

Intervention