Explore | Blog | Let’s design housing that celebrates later life

1 August 2024

Our experience of designing all kinds of homes, for people at all stages of life, brings with it an understanding of how to do so with care, delight and efficiency.

The most successful housing schemes are central to the growth of a thriving community.  Enabling connection to family, friends and neighbours, to the wider community: to arts activities, music and cultural life, to sports and hobbies is a vital component in enabling a rich and interdependent later life.

The natural world has a strong influence on wellbeing, and an integrated approach to buildings and landscape enhances that connection and provides places for many of the activities which populate daily life.

Our approach to designing communities for those in later life is informed from across the residential sector.

We understand how you create these kinds of places: we are well experienced in making places where people live together in communities, from developments like Accordia in Cambridge which is set within shared gardens and car free streets, and Brabazon Bristol, which brings together a patchwork of neighbourhoods within a landscape led new district, to Stephen Taylor Court, graduate accommodation for King’s College Cambridge and emerging senior living schemes near Bristol and Gloucester.

At Accordia, which went on to win the Stirling Prize, the landscape was central to the success of the project and particularly to the evolution of the neighbourhood community. The balance between private and public gardens encouraged communication and neighbourliness, with people crossing paths often, and gradually opening up to becoming friends. The public and private gardens had a similar planting style, unifying the space to the eye, but where the boundaries between public and private lie remain clearly legible – a key factor in enabling residents to behave appropriately in the gardens.

Another approach might be the small community of multi-generational homes that we designed for Kings College Cambridge. Stephen Taylor Court is a mix of family homes and student rooms arranged around common gardens, that act as an entrance hall, a space to linger and a place to sit as well as giving a pleasant outlook for all of the apartments.

The regeneration of the South Kilburn Estate London reinstated historic street patterns, replacing the postwar tower blocks with buildings that range in scale between four and eight storeys, with frequent doors onto the street, courtyard gardens and a sense of urban domesticity.

Although designed for a different demographic, the scheme fulfils similar needs to those of later living homes: They have common facilities and a common landlord. They are designed to be efficient, high performing and comfortable, with low energy costs and provide a variety of shared facilities and spaces where people can come together socially.

Later Living developments typically welcome their residents from 55, and reasons for moving vary – from down or right-sizing, looking for community or security or for economic reasons. This supports wider social movement – freeing up valuable housing stock for families and helping alleviate the housing crisis further down the line.

Key approaches include :  
Creating a legible community built up at a variety of scales
From the individual home, to clusters around courtyard gardens to larger groupings made legible by the clear routes across the scheme and the site.

Integrating homes and landscape
Communities often have shared social space – a garden, shared seating areas and space for activities, making space for and promoting a lively and healthy lifestyle.
 A variety of outdoor spaces allow for a whole range of activities, whether organised or personal, reflective or energetic. Flexibility in the landscape can support a variety of activities that reflect the enthusiasms of a changing group of residents.

Progressive privacy
Homes designed for later living are designed to be welcoming and open, whilst respecting the sense of security that is particularly sensitive in later life. Designing in progressive security means that visitors are welcomed, and new and existing relationships are nurtured. However, clear thresholds establish progressive levels of privacy throughout the scheme. Residents dwellings remain secure spaces, giving peace of mind to both residents and their families that they are safe from uninvited guests.

Adaptability
At the level of the individual home, spaces can be flexible, to adapt and change as required to suit the changing requirements of the residents. From studio apartments to larger dwellings that can accommodate a spare room as an office or work room that could double up as a bedroom for occasional visitors; a kitchen that is accessible, and a bathroom that could be adapted as a shower wet room. Generously sized rooms, which go above space standards, make them more flexible – to accommodate existing furniture, welcome guests and leave room for hobbies and social calls.

Designing for wellbeing
People in homes for later living typically spend more time at home. This slower pace of life can be embraced through careful design.

If carefully oriented, dual aspect homes, large windows and access to balconies can bring plenty of natural light into the dwellings, making them pleasant to spend time in and supporting wellbeing and diurnal patterns.

Sustainable
As people age, their bodies become less effective at regulating temperature, making them more vulnerable to both extreme heat and cold. A high performance home, energy efficient home is better at keeping a steady temperature, and costs less to heat and cool. We have been pioneering this kind of low carbon design since our inception, taking a fabric first approach to design with passive technologies and efficient systems that deliver homes that are cheap and easy to run.

It must also hold its capital – a home is an investment that people will rely on in the event of the owners’ medical needs or to pass on to a relative. Good design is imperative for this.

A recent Healthier and Happier report found that an average person aged 80 feels as good as someone aged 10 years younger after moving from mainstream housing to housing specially designed for later living. Looking at housing design through the lens of homes for later life reveals the importance of community, security and quality in making a place to fully experience the third age.

Rachel Sayers

Images
Top: Proposed homes for later living at Brabazon, around a shared garden
1. Accordia: homes set in shared and private landscape
2. Stephen Taylor Court: Graduate and fellows accommodation for Kings College Cambridge\, arranged around shared gardens
3. Unity Place: The redevelopment of the South Kilburn Estate\, at a human scale.

Happier and Healthier Report, 2019
https://www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics/type/Healthier-and-Happier-An-analysis-of-the-fiscal-and-wellbeing-benefits-of-building-more-homes-for-later-living/