Lessons from the past
A housing development designed to tackle loneliness and inspired by community living in the Middle Ages has won the UK’s most prestigious architecture award. Appleby Blue Almshouse in south London received this year’s Royal Institute of British Architects’ (Riba) Stirling Prize.
The complex consists of 59 flats for the over-65s with a community kitchen and shared facilities including a courtyard and roof garden. It was designed by Witherford Watson Mann Architects for United St Saviour’s Charity and was created on the site of a disused care home.
The firm’s Stephen Witherford said: “Working closely and imaginatively with United St. Saviour’s Charity, we’ve created an environment that reduces loneliness, encourages connection, and supports a good later life. The charity has made social housing aspirational, enabling people to grow old locally with the right support, benefiting both residents and the wider Southwark community. We’re honoured that the Riba Stirling Prize recognises the power of architecture to create places that genuinely transform lives.”
Almshouses became common in the Middle Ages as charitable home for the poor and elderly. Their use continued throughout the centuries and many still exist today.
A spokesperson for the Riba jury said: “This project is a clarion call for a new form of housing at a pivotal moment. Built against the backdrop of two crises, an acute housing shortage and a growing loneliness epidemic among older people, Appleby Blue offers a hopeful and imaginative response, where residents and the surrounding community are brought together through the transformative nature of the design.”
