Older People’s Housing – the Pandemic and recent Planning Changes

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Older People’s Housing – the Pandemic and recent Planning Changes

Older People’s Housing – the Pandemic and recent Planning Changes

Earlier this year I took over the chair of the Retirement Housing Group; an association of developers, operators, advisory bodies and consultants involved with the wide range of specialist housing for older people. I was assured that chairing this group would not be a hugely demanding task but, with the pandemic raging, that turned out to be not entirely true.

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Pioneer Intergenerational Co-Housing – The Cockaigne Houses in Hatfield

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Pioneer Intergenerational Co-Housing – The Cockaigne Houses in Hatfield

This viewpoint gives a personal account of the development of a pioneering intergenerational cohousing scheme in Hatfield, built over 50 years ago.

As recognised in the APPG on Housing and Care for Older People inquiry in 2016, it is a forerunner to the HAPPI principles and its attractive single storey design and build quality have stood the test of time. The development was not specifically designed for older people but both the adaptable design and the management are based on cooperative ideals and most of the residents are now of retirement age with 11 of the 28 households being ‘downsizers’. Furthermore, the affection for Cockaigne architecturally and the adaptability of the houses to meet a diverse range of ages, lifestyle choices and disability has also ensured a low turnover in ownership.

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Church architecture – a dual view

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Church architecture – a dual view

My involvement with church architecture began early when, as a choral exhibitioner at Corpus and the only architect in my year there, I was a sitting target to do a lot of the donkey work for the chapel re-ordering which was then under discussion. My main labour was to produce a survey drawing of one bay of the interior, including Blomfield’s dark oak roof. This was taken away by one of the fellows, Malcolm Burgess, who reappeared a few days later with my drawing, coloured in the riot of sky blue, peach and gold which has enlivened the chapel ever since.

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A brief history of housing for older people

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A brief history of housing for older people

In the beginning there were hospitals, early examples being very widely spread in Alexandria, Baghdad, Paris and elsewhere, and these were primarily, as you might expect, places of care for the sick and wounded butin northern Europe during the early middle ages a new and different kind of hospital, a charitable residence for old men, begins to appear. The first known example is St Peter’s hospital in York, founded by King Aethelstan in 936 and the earliest remaining is the St Cross Hospital in Winchester dating from 1133.

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