How can heritage sites be repurposed to form communities for elderly people living independently in sustainable and liveable communities?
The Housing Forum’s latest ‘Learning at Lunchtime’ webinar focused on this topic, with presentations from Clare Cameron, Director, Architecture, at PRP, Simon Chenery, Director at HLM Architects and Ryan Horder, Hoare Lea consultants.
The discussion was chaired by Shelagh Grant, Chief Executive of the Housing Forum, with questions from Housing Forum members who attended the event.
New Lodge Community – how later living has transformed the heart of New Earswick Garden Village, York (Clare Cameron)
Clare’s presentation ran through the work of PRP’s later living team, which has over 30 designers. Their new development at New Lodge Community in Earswick for Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust has won several awards. The site has a deep history, originally designed as a garden village by the philanthropist Joseph Rowntree to help his workers escape the slums of York. The village was originally equipped with a train station, village hall, train station and GP’s office, and the entire site is now a conservation area.
Over the years, the village has aged and several homes are underoccupied and there was a lack of intergenerational balance, with local schools and youth centres not being used.
The new retirement community is imagined to rebalance the village, and integrated an existing care home, Red Lodge, with minimal disruption for the existing residents.
Building in an existing and unstructured open space, PRP aimed to bring some structure to the public realm, integrating new apartments with new paths, a public swimming pool, and a refurbishment of the listed folk hall. Refurbishing existing facilities, such as this folk hall, has also allowed lower service charges for residents moving in, as the price of building new facilities hasn’t had to be factored in.
The architecture for the site draws from influences in the arts & crafts movement which first created the site, and regular liaising with the local planning department was needed to ensure that the conservation site was being genuinely improved.
One key element of the site was using the same architecture for the care home as for the rest of the site, so as not to isolate the elderly residents and to create a gentle feel. Covered walkways in the sites allow residents to walk about and for food to be brought both in the rain and during intense hot periods.
The site was built at a high density to meet viability requirements, and flexibility and adaptability requirements necessitated that the flats were designed to be convertible between 2 and 3 bedroom care sites.
Repurposing Cedars Village with a net zero solution–at the independent retirement community in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire (Simon Chenery and Ryan Horder)
Simon’s presentation focused on Cedar Village, an independent retirement community in Chorelywood.
Cedar Village is an existing retirement village on the edge of Chorleywood, designed around the Grade II listed clubhouse. The brief included ways to revitalise the clubhouse, opportunities to add new dwellings, and to respond to the clients’ net zero carbon emissions.
The first challenge was to reorganise the activities in the existing zones, and the layout of the site’s rooms were reformatted to allow the residents to use the site in full.
The client had several ESG goals, and to fulfil these HLM aimed to reduce the operational carbon in the site, insulating the building and applying more window glazing throughout.
The conservation area constrained the estate and so care was needed. Heritage consultants were brought on board, and the pros and cons of various heat sources were considered.
A whole life carbon study was undertaken, including embodied carbon, to find a good solution to create a better building and to lower the site’s carbon outputs.
With a fabric-first approach, there were difficulties with improving air quality to accommodate for increased resident population. This was achieved through air ducts conducted from the basement embedded within existing furniture.
A particular challenge was the conservatory, a delicate and well-designed historic space. However, the internal conditions make the space unusable at some times of the year, and the client wanted it to be usable all year round. As a listed building, secondary glazing could not be added, but a glass box within the conservatory could be, and it was connected through to the cafe area, creating an environmentally sealed area inside the conservatory, which could be opened up when conditions allowed.
A heating and cooling system arose from this ‘box within a box’, and so Hoarde Lea introduced several mitigating measures including air source heat pumps, solar shading, and fan-cool units. This also reduced the conservatory’s energy output, as they were previously using inefficient heating units.
Clare, Simon, and Ryan then answered questions in a panel discussion, on a range of topics including planning, how the site was heated, the grant funding available, how service charges can be reduced, and how the views of elderly residents with dementia can be factored into building design.
Thank you to Clare, Simon, and Ryan for their brilliant presentations, and to our members for attending the event.
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