Jim Hudson and Kath Scanlon, May 2024
Our recently completed CHIC research was very specifically about the potential of self-managed communities for older people in the context of social care. But the downside was that there just aren’t that many communities that truly fit the ‘self-managed’ label. Given that we concluded our project report with asking how the whole concept might be scaled up to many more projects, it seemed worth stepping outside our bubble for a while to explore what else is out there in terms of new initiatives in housing for older people, and whether there’s something we might learn.
So we recently visited four schemes which caught our attention as being exceptionally well-designed (one was the winner of last year’s Stirling Prize for the UK’s best new building), or taking an innovative approach to housing provision in some other way.
We looked at three new schemes: Appleby Blue (Bermondsey), Christopher Boone’s Court (Lewisham) and Tonic@Bankhouse (Vauxhall), and one historic site with a new addition: Morden College in Blackheath. The first and last are almshouses* and Christopher Boone’s is a kind of hybrid of open market homes and affordable almshouses. The four schemes are within few miles of each other in south London, but there’s a real diversity in terms of type of urban location, approach to design and management, and ways that residents socialise with each other and with the wider community.
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*Almshouses are an ancient form of community housing that is held in trust for local people in housing need, managed and run by individual almshouse charities. Although they represent only a small part of retirement housing (around 30,000 homes with 36,000 residents), some of today’s most adventurous and thoughtfully designed projects are almshouses. The financial trusts on which many rely have been relatively unaffected by government funding restrictions or macroeconomic conditions, and are instead used to long-term planning, sometimes over several hundreds of years.
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In fact, the four are so diverse that it was difficult to draw a set of neat conclusions about what we can learn. We might perhaps observe that community is easier to achieve in a place where members/residents already have a strong bond in common (e.g. at Tonic, the UK’s first LGBTQ+ retirement scheme). Or draw out the similarities in design. That Christopher Boone’s and Appleby Blue both employ ‘sociable’ courtyard designs with all flats opening onto a continuous wide balcony with seating areas. That Appleby Blue and the John Morden Centre share gorgeous soaring common areas, flooded with sunlight. Or perhaps that all four have inviting green spaces (including roof gardens).
As you’ll probably sense from looking at some of the images here, we should acknowledge that it took deep pockets to develop some of these projects. But these are far from being gated communities for the wealthy (in fact most of the residents are not wealthy at all), with much that we might learn – and aspire to – for the broader retirement housing sector. And perhaps the difficulty in describing what all four do have in common (beyond the fact of being decently funded) is the point. Even this small sample is a reminder that ‘older people’ describes a hugely diverse group, not really a single group at all. But the quality and diversity of these schemes did suggest to us a range of potential responses to the dire lack of decent options for older people looking to downsize (or rightsize) into a home that offers the chance to live in a sociable environment, one which isn’t cut off from the rest of the world, and that also manages to avoid being paternalistic or institutionalised in feel.
None of the four schemes is generally open to the public, and we are hugely grateful to the residents who so generously welcomed us into their homes and to the managers who explained how each of these unique places works.
We deliberately tried to keep residents out of our images as far as possible, since as researchers we’d have to seek everyone’s consent. All four communities were actually much busier than the near-ghost-towns that the images might imply!
Tonic@Bankhouse, Vauxhall
The most central scheme was Tonic@Bankhouse, the UK’s first LGBT+ affirming retirement community. This is the first scheme created by Tonic, a community-led not for profit organisation that hopes eventually to expand across the country. The estimated one million LGBT+ people over 55 in the UK are too often ill-served by existing retirement options: at best they provide a one-size-fits-all approach, and at worst staff and other residents might be actively unsympathetic to LGBT+ people and their lives.
Tonic@Bankhouse opened in 2021 in a high-profile, Norman Foster-designed, cluster of three towers on Albert Embankment. It is located in very central London: the site faces Tate Britain across the river, and the Houses of Parliament are just in view downstream. The market units in the neighbouring block sell for many millions, but Bankhouse itself – the smallest tower in the cluster at 14 floors – was developed as affordable housing. The flats on the remaining floors are for social rent and are owned and managed by Riverside, a Registered Provider of housing for older people.
During a market dip Tonic managed to buy the 19 flats on the top four floors, supported by a £5.7m loan from the Mayor of London. Most of these apartments have in turn been sold to Tonic’s new residents on a shared ownership basis, and purchasers can staircase up to a maximum of 75% of the leasehold. Tonic is looking to become a registered social landlord (in effect a housing association) in the near future and aims to switch some of the shared ownership properties at Bankhouse to social rent.
Bankhouse was an especially good fit for Tonic’s first project because all the flats in the tower are served as extra care housing, and the personal care and support services on site are available to all residents including Tonic’s. On the first floor there is a small restaurant, bar and social space, plus a rather windswept garden (all shared with the extra care residents) – there is also a roof garden on the 15th floor has fantastic views across south London and to the East, and a framed view north to Millbank Tower.
Tonic challenged some of our views about the relationship between design and community. Yes, it’s in a great location with amazing views, but the building has few of the community-oriented design features that we’ve been used to in our work with collaborative or community-led housing. The individual flats don’t overlook each other or the common space, the shared spaces themselves are quite separate from most of the residents, and the building is shared with others who are not Tonic members.
But Tonic@Bankhouse clearly is working as a community, with a real buzz and excitement among its members about the whole project. It’s a true community of interest, and residents’ shared life experience draws them together. Residents run the bar themselves, and Tonic has drawn in corporate partners who sponsor the bar and various social events, although there’s also more relaxed socialising such as coffee/breakfast mornings at weekends. Also, a wider community network has formed around the scheme and helps draw in prospective residents; those interested can hang out with and get to know the community at their regular social events before committing. The welcome extends to non-Tonic building residents; they regularly join in with events thus widening the community still further.
There’s a wide spread of ages: the oldest Tonic resident is 88 but most are in their 60s. Although the signatory of the lease or rental contract must be 55 or over, partners can be younger, and this makes for a much more intergenerational group than the term “retirement community” might suggest.
Christopher Boone’s Court, Lewisham
Then to something quite different: a scheme developed by One Housing (now a part of Riverside) of 65 flats for people over the age of 57, designed by PRP Architects and opened in 2019. The relatively low-key exterior elevations give little clue to the unusual quality of the scheme within, whose levels of design and space are well above the norm for retirement housing.
The first striking thing is that all the flats (a mix of one and two beds) are double aspect. Each has a street view but in addition the kitchens (and sometimes second bedrooms) face directly onto a wide, open balcony that runs around three sides of the sunny south-facing courtyard. At intervals this circulation space widens even further, forming meeting points for serendipitous encounters.
Generous benches and planters on the balconies add to the feel of a space that’s neither private nor completely public, a contrast to the cramped internal corridors built to minimal space standards so often found in spec-built retirement schemes. Even the staircases are flooded with light, and the whole development feels exceptionally airy and open.
The scheme’s common spaces include a club room (good for movie nights) and a striking freestanding events space in a sort of garden pavilion. Unusually, the courtyard garden actually looks better than in the architect’s original visualisations. The open space feels bigger than it is, and a lot of thought went into the design: even residents with failing memories can’t get lost as the paths take a circular route that always leads back to the reception and office.
Although the overall design is inward-looking, this is still an avowedly urban scheme. The many street-facing balconies and windows allow for interaction with the surrounding streets and buildings, and the development enjoys a well-connected location – within walking (or scooting) distance of the centre of Lewisham and of leafier Blackheath village.
Clearly the quality of the scheme is due in part at least to the choice of architect and the freedom they were given to do something well. In turn that might reflect the unusual gestation of the project: of the scheme’s 65 flats, 35 households are renters who moved from an almshouse scheme nearby, the rest are leasehold owners, who’ve sometimes moved here from other areas. The rental homes and common parts are managed by Riverside Housing. Apart from the rental flats tending to be one rather than two bed, there’s no other differentiation, and the residents seem to get along well.
Appleby Blue, Bermondsey
Appleby Blue is an almshouse opened in 2023 by the United St Saviour’s Charity in Bermondsey, south London. The charity provides homes to people over 65 who are in significant financial need, with 50% of its residents drawn from the local authority housing list.
The new building, which is entirely social housing, is beautifully designed and finished, made possible because by specific circumastances. Southwark Council owned the ite, which was formerly occupied by a care home; further funding came from the charity itself, and from a 2015 Section 106 agreement* for the Triptych Bankside luxury apartment block, located some distance away next to the Tate Modern. Such a deal would be unlikely now, we heard.
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* In effect a local tax where a local authority can require a developer to pay towards the funding of local infrastructure or other public goods
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While the quality of finish and build at Christopher Boone’s is pretty good, Appleby Blue’s is outstanding. Use of a wide range of timber throughout gives the building enormous warmth.
The scheme was designed by Witherford Watson Mann architects, who had little previous experience in housing for older people, and this may be one reason that it feels so welcoming and un-institutional. Interestingly though it shares some features with Christopher Boone’s: dual aspect flats open onto wide, bright access balconies around a central landscaped courtyard – in this case with the addition of a roof garden with planting areas for residents. Also comparably, the rear of the complex (to the south) has been kept lower than the rest of the scheme to allow more sunlight into the courtyard and the rest of the building.
But what’s unique to Appleby Blue is that the design turns the almshouse concept inside out. Almshouses were traditionally arranged with the housing set back from the street and facing onto a courtyard, but with the common spaces hidden away around the back – the whole a ‘quiet retreat’ largely disconnected from the bustle of the outside world. Here the idea is turned around, with the large common space and a long mezzanine visible through huge windows from the street. The raised mezzanine brings residents level with the top storey of the buses that stop directly outside: this gallery level has high-backed seating facing the windows, treating the street almost as entertainment in itself.
While the design encourages residents to look outwards, St Saviour’s is also keen to bring the outside world in. The charity is also a grantmaker, with numerous links to local community organisations, and aims to open up the shared facilities – kitchen and dining areas, meeting rooms – for use by outside organisations, provided they’re beneficial to the residents themselves. First among these looks set to be Migrateful, a charity that supports refugees in bringing their cooking skills and traditions to other groups.
The John Morden Centre at Morden College, Blackheath
Our final visit was the John Morden Centre, a new social hub for the 300-year-old Morden College almshouses in Blackheath. The building brings together various social functions that had previously been scattered across the site. The term ‘College’ is an apt one: the buildings and the huge 11-acre grounds feel like an Oxbridge college. The original Grade I-listed almshouse, constructed in 1695 and still in use, was built to a design said to be by Christopher Wren and certainly carried out by his master mason Edward Strong.
Images: the original 17th C almsouse block (main facade, and courtyard)
The scheme is home to 120 residents who live independently, and also a 30-bed care home (there’s also a separate site in Beckenham with around 100 flats). Because there is on-site care, residents can stay in the community even if their care needs increase; the average age of residents in the early to mid-80s.
By contrast with the grandeur of the main buildings, the new John Morden Centre is built to a modest, human scale, and tucked away from the ‘grand sequence’ that greets visitors entering the site. The building, by Mæ Architects, won the 2023 Stirling Prize and it was clear to see why. Like Appleby Blue (whose architects are also previous Stirling winners), the building showcases incredible attention to detail and materials, with a rich mix of timber and brick both inside and out.
The single storey design breaks down what is actually quite a large building to a very domestic scale. It functions as a social hub rather than accommodation and contains a cafe and dining hall, lounge, event space, art room and even a small shop (there’s also a separate bar elsewhere on the site). The art room has already been outgrown: one resident, a professional artist, uses a separate small side building as his studio and it’s full of his (and others’) paintings.
We had lunch with residents June and Madge, who are big fans of the new building. They hang out there most days, enjoying the relaxed ambience and the chance of serendipitous meetings and chat. We heard that although the charity’s primary responsibility is to support those in financial need, there was a real mix of people and interests and many residents have backgrounds in business and the arts.
Images above: dining room (image credit: Mæ architects)
Below: shared spaces including an art room and main hall.
The residents are largely responsible for organising their own events, for which there is a budget and support from staff. Those we spoke to really appreciated having so much on site, with all their needs catered for. “You never need to leave” as one person put it, although we did wonder whether the size and location of the site might feel sometimes isolating. (One staff member said they’d always lived locally but had never heard of the College before applying for a job there.) On the other hand, there are strong social links with the wider local community: not only do local people volunteer there, but residents themselves do volunteer work, including as befrienders. These relationships often start as something formal but develop into strong friendships within and beyond the Morden College community.