With its shimmering ginkgo trees, tinkling pools and a rooftop garden, the Appleby Blue Almshouse housing complex for older people is a worthy winner of RIBA’s prestigious Stirling prize
escribed as “a provision of pure delight”, Appleby Blue Almshouse, a social housing complex for older people has been named this year’s winner of the RIBA Stirling prize. With a vibe that has more in common with an Alpine spa hotel than the poky rooms and grim corridors usually associated with housing for elderly people, the building – by architects Witherford Watson Mann – reinvents the almshouse for the modern era as a place of care, shelter and social connection.
As a building type, the origins of almshouses extend back centuries, giving a semblance of dignity to the poor, the old, the sick and the marginalised. Sequestered from the outside world, with cellular dwellings arrayed around courtyards, they evoke a sense of pastoral benevolence.
For Witherford Watson Mann, the challenge was not only how to rethink the traditional almshouse form, but also how to look beyond the simple provision of housing, to conceive of it as the heart of a hosting network, a set of rooms to be shared with like-minded local organisations. The client, United St Saviour’s, a charity based in Southwark, London, is also a grant-making trust, supporting refugee groups and youth centres, as well as cultural organisations. The aim is that these will make use of the building’s communal spaces, so it feels like an integral part of local life, rather than some kind of secluded retirement enclave.
