Mae designs John Morden Centre for older people – ADC

Established in 1695 by philanthropist Sir John Morden to provide support and accommodation to retired widowed merchants, Morden College continues to provide homes today, operating as a charity providing various levels of care for the elderly. This includes independent living after retirement and, if required, support facilities in the form of visiting residential and medical care, as well as enrichment courses.

Philosophically, the structure of the facility focuses on building a community with – unlike other later living housing providers – a long-term vision. It does this by enabling access to independent living, whilst providing support to adapt the care provision for each resident as needs arise. All the beneficiaries held leadership roles within their working lives.

The estate is made up of the original Morden College building including 40 almshouses, the chapel crypt constructed by Edward Strong, Sir Christopher Wren’s master mason, and several additional housing units outlying the historic plot. The estate now has an additional building, The John Morden Centre, a facility intended to consolidate the care and enrichment programmes into one location. It contains a medical centre, wellbeing facilities, a restaurant and events space designed by 2022 Stirling Prize-shortlisted practice Mae.

When considering later living, it is impossible to separate three interconnected concerns: loneliness, poverty, and life expectancy.

The impact of social isolation has been heightened in recent years as a result of the global pandemic and has reached cohorts, including younger generations, that would otherwise not be exposed so early in life, if at all. One would hope that, moving forward, this unexpected experience will give us greater empathy when considering how we plan for the future, and how we create architectural environments that are generous and humane.

In the UK, 1.4 million elderly people are reported to be lonely or suffering from social isolation, which is medically proven to lead to deterioration in health and well-being, resulting in heart disease, weak immune systems, obesity, and cognitive decline. These issues are directly attributed to the lack of the most simple and natural human actions: movement, conversation, and interaction.

We also have an ageing population. Depending on where you gather data, we are now living approximately 10 years longer, and significantly longer if not diagnosed with a debilitating disease. The average life expectancy of a child born in 2030 is around 85 years. Sadly, life expectancy has compounded the problem of age-related poverty. One in five of our elderly population lives in poverty without appropriate accommodation, necessary medical attention or social support.

To intelligently construct a supportive built environment, and to define a scope for architecture, we need to consider the implications broadly and design backwards with a positive and inclusive attitude. It is not beyond the realms of reality that one individual could have two or three careers, perhaps with interim sabbaticals. We are more likely to have natural family carers in multi-generations and a tighter co-living community. Housing will adapt to accommodate new living patterns and typologies, and shared facilities will grow exponentially.

It’s fair to say that, if not for the current economic picture and limiting procurement models, new structures for living would freely evolve, informed by completely different and visionary environments. Pushing the framework of possibilities further, one could imagine eliminating all reference to the retirement sector, a status in life we are conditioned to view with pessimism, in lieu of a holistic attitude with community infrastructure at its heart, and within which our later living cohorts – whether healthy or requiring care – are not marginalised.

This community building by Mae has provoked many observations in this context, bound by optimism both in its urban response and its programmatic agility.

Whilst Mae’s Stirling shortlist project, Sands End Arts and Community Centre, London, is also a community building, the practice’s built portfolio is extensively housing and urban design, both new-build and estate infill projects. With this expertise comes strategic and frugal planning skills, and also an acute understanding of human needs, particularly when you have limited space thanks to site constraints or project budgets; (usually both).

Before Mae’s John Morden Centre came to be, the facilities it provided were distributed loosely in various locations across the site. A need was identified to consolidate and expand with a dedicated place to contain a health centre and administration facilities for practical efficiency, and also to create space for all of the enrichment programmes; including well-being facilities, restaurant, craft rooms, workshops and an events space.

The project was spearheaded by CEO and client, David Rutherford-Jones, who strategically managed a design competition to ensure the best team was appointed. The Maggie’s Centre philosophy of welcoming, unintimidating environments was an inspiration. Most of all, the board of trustees was inspired by the potential to enhance the culture within the campus, building on the established structure of the community; one that would naturally and progressively allow the cohort to extend their domestic experience and their friendships whilst not enforcing a membership club-type or intimidating atmosphere. It was Rutherford-Jones’ opinion, that, whatever the degree of participation, the fact that the centre exists is a comfort.

The plot identified for the building sits along the southern edge of the site, occupying a long, narrow armature of the curtilage and flanked on one side by residential gardens, and on the other by an estate. In terms of its position and proportions, it is not a site one would naturally choose. It does not naturally allow for multiple access points, and the potential for significant aspects seems compromised, considering the position of the plot relative to Blackheath Green. Another constraint was the proximity and risk of a new building to the listed properties within the estate.

Irrespective of these limits, the programme is strategic, responding cunningly to the constraints by stretching out along the site, making the most of every available aspect. The neighbouring garden fences to the north are not perceived internally because the service areas and workshop lightwell are positioned on this side. A timber colonnade forms the south façade and looks onto a newly planted garden by J&L Gibbons screening the residences beyond.

Upon arrival at the building, the expansive threshold includes a courtyard and garden room. The elongated plan sequence commences with the medical centre, administration, and reception, before moving onto the enclosed garden colonnade, which contains a miniature street of shops, a hairdresser, a nail bar and an art room leading into a large open-plan restaurant. The journey end with the refurbished Morden Hall, a multi-use events space.

The cross-laminated exposed timber forms give clarity to the programme internally, each hosting a particular function. The sightlines outwards, directed towards the retained maple tree sitting central to the garden and through the punched windows to clear sky, are carefully curated. Internally, glazed partitions within the art room frame the restaurant and green beyond that. Altogether, the layering works as an architectural duvet with pacifying effect. One can easily find a place to be alone or to choose company.

More significantly, taking account of the programme and the plot position, the placement and distribution of the programme responds to the historic estate by taking subtle cues from the atmosphere and spirit evoked by its visceral qualities.

The Grade I-listed Morden College holds a significant and brave position in the landscape setting, staking extensive ground with an expansive frontage and perimeter. However, upon entering the building, the shear fortification reveals an open residential cloistered quadrangle, instantly legible and more accessible than one might anticipate.

Once inside and moving around the estate, the fine balance of solid building and soft landscape is felt, and the fact that the quadrangle is instantly revealed quickly establishes the importance and purpose of the gardens and the fresh feeling of being outside. It also provides an orientating figure from which everything else gravitates logically.

The route towards the John Morden Centre is a natural extension of this procession and is carefully linked to an opening in the historic garden wall and route through from the main quadrangle. You know where to go intuitively, and the estate invites you to wander. The building gently awaits, with a soft exterior formed of the same estate-wide material. The programme then unravels without any jerks, having adopted the same breathing rhythms from the estate.

The centre is an original typology for a community building serving this cohort. It is not compact. It is dynamic, both in architectural form and allocation of functions; free-flowing and designed around human action, such as walking, talking and observing. The flow of spaces, the way you are instructed by design to use them, and the views through and outwards insist on participation. Perhaps drawn to ideas embedded in The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art on the shore of the Øresund Sound, north of Copenhagen, this is a landscape-led facility, smaller in scale and underwritten conceptually by the way you move through it, with each threshold condition purposely elongated. Similarly, a domestic quality is achieved by the choice of structural timber walls, piloti and clay brick.

Impossible to represent in the photography is the consciousness of place, which is handled very successfully within the masterplan; both its connection and purposeful disconnection. Deliberately informal in massing terms, the pitched repeated volumes relate to the existing forms, and the vertical articulation of chimneys and colonnade are selected from the historic ingredients.

Whilst the building accepts the need for a familiar material palette which has historic references, it is juxtaposed with a forward-thinking architectural programme that is not historic but reacts organically to the historical setting.

In a broad vision, the building is positively ambivalent. It has a job to do today, whilst also being mindful of radical change. Accepting this condition gives it optimism and good prospects to evolve or to restructure around a new community in a second or third iteration with a different set of functions and needs. It need not fear cultural change because it has not alienated alternatives in not attempting to emulate an outdated institutional model. Instead, its logical programme follows the fixities relating to human conditions – socialising, interaction, ergonomics, and movement – as well as the wider urban values offered by its territory and aspect.

When asked the burning question, would I be happy for my elderly parents to join this community, my answer was an instinctive Yes. The project represents a model attitude and deeply felt understanding of social value.