Appleby Blue Almshouse project wins national Housing Design Awards 2024
Appleby Blue Almshouse in Bermondsey, London, by Witherford Watson Mann architects and with landscape design by Grant Associates, has received two honours at the national 2024 Housing Design Awards: The HAPPI Award (sponsored by the Housing LIN) and the prestigious Blue Riband Winner Award.
The new almshouse for United St Saviour’s Charity provides independent living with a resident support model for over 65-year-olds in Southwark. It stood out among 13 other winners from across the UK’s housing sector to receive the top award at the annual industry event.
Reinventing the historic model of an almshouse, a form of sheltered housing by a private charity offering low-cost residential accommodation to the elderly, Appleby Blue is designed to encourage residents and non-residents to come together through its open nature and progression of places to share, extending from the busy public high street to the more intimate walkways.
The new almshouse has been built around a courtyard garden, lined on its sides by glazed walkways accessing the apartments and bringing the changing colours and light of the seasonal garden into the residents’ everyday experience.
Appleby Blue is an incredible project that really sets the benchmark for the future possibilities of urban living for older people. It has been a privilege to be part of the team to make the plans for this scheme a reality, and to be seeing first-hand the impact that high-quality design and direct contact with nature is now having when it comes to improving people’s quality of life and wellbeing — and the project’s success at the national Housing Design Awards just shows the impact that it is having. We need to place greater focus as a society on how we approach city centre housing for older people; the success of Appleby Blue demonstrates how older residents can maintain strong links with their communities, while mitigating loneliness through greater opportunities for sharing.
