A modern answer to traditional social housing for older people, designed to combat loneliness, has won a prestigious award for the UK’s best new building.
The Appleby Blue Hospice, which offers affordable apartments for residents over 65 in Southwark, south London, won the annual Stirling Prize on Thursday, which is awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
The complex has 59 apartments plus communal areas, including a roof garden, a patio and a communal kitchen.
The award jury highlighted that “it proposes an ambitious pattern of social housing for older people.”
The architects of the firm Witherford Watson Mann have created “high-quality” spaces, designed to create environments that show that they really care for their residents, said Ingrid Schroder, member of the jury and director of the Association of Architects School of Architecture.
Schroder added: “Built against the backdrop of two crises, a severe housing shortage and a growing epidemic of loneliness among older people, Appleby Blue offers a hopeful and imaginative response, where residents and the surrounding community come together through the transformative nature of the design.”
The building was praised for its “generous” apartments, terracotta-floored hallways with benches and plants, and an irrigation system that gives the building “the feel of a wooded oasis.”
All of this creates an “aspirational lifestyle environment” that is “in stark contrast to the institutional climate often associated with care homes,” the RIBA said.
In fact, Appleby Blue was built in an abandoned nursing home.
Hospices were traditionally built since the Middle Ages to provide charitable residence to people in need.
Other finalists
To win this year’s Stirling Prize, Appleby Blue beat a number of nominated buildings and architectural projects, from the restoration of London’s Big Ben tower to a new fashion school and science laboratory.
The award is given to the building deemed “most significant of the year for the evolution of architecture and the built environment,” and is judged on criteria including visionary design, innovation and originality.
This is the second time Witherford Watson Mann are the winning architects. 12 years ago they were selected for their design of a revolutionary summer house within the ancient Astley Castle, in the county of Warwickshire.
The Elizabeth line, the new metropolitan rail line crossing London from east to west, won the prestigious award last year.
Other previous winners of the award – inaugurated in 1996 – include the Everyman Theater in Liverpool, Hastings Pier and the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh.
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The post Appleby Blue: a social housing model awarded for its inclusive and modern design appeared first on Veritas News.
