Grafton Road Extra Care Development – Staffordshire

Sanctuary Housing Association

Grafton Road, Longton, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire

Bowman Riley designed an extra care housing development at Grafton Road for local people with learning disabilities and additional physical or sensory impairment, currently living in inappropriate hospital accommodation. The site was selected following consultation with carers and relatives to ensure satisfactory amenity, convenience and access.

The 1380m² development accommodates two clusters of eight self-contained one bedroom flats together with ancillary accommodation commensurate with the 24 hour support the residents need.

As the residents have mobility problems, the requirement was for a single storey building with a layout is as compact as possible while allowing generous circulation areas. The internal spaces of the building are designed specifically to address the needs of users with limited mobility and are fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The scale of the single storey residential building raised significant design issues. To address these, the apparent bulk of the roof was mitigated using of a hipped roof form with varying ridge heights. Gable features with largely glazed elevations denote the communal spaces within the development and relieve the horizontal nature of the scheme.

There is potential for the scheme of this type to attract anti-social behaviour. To protect residents, the entrances and communal open spaces are located to minimise overlooking from passersby.