13/10/2025
Care, Variation and Delight
We are currently working with two London boroughs on projects supporting residents with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. In Tower Hamlets we are reconfiguring and extending a disused former school to create a specialist learning community hub. In Kensington and Chelsea we are exploring options for a new build project combining a community hub with independent living and both planned and unplanned respite care. The site sits within an area of Edwardian terraces and semis, a context that lends itself well to the residential elements but is more challenging for the vibrancy and accessibility expected of a community hub.
The two projects share many functional aims, particularly in their learning and community aspects, though their contexts differ. Both draw on our experience designing for people with complex physical and mental health needs, and on our ability to create buildings that balance freedom and safety, privacy and dignity. Each is being shaped to offer variation, so that every person can find where they best fit at that time rather than being drawn into uncomfortable over interaction or uninvited isolation.
In one recent workshop, a physiotherapist urged us to design with sensory needs in mind throughout the building, not to confine the idea to a single room cluttered with glowing catalogue gadgets. It was a striking reminder that light, sound, movement and touch should be considered everywhere, not themed or contained.
Both projects will include clients with profound and multiple learning disabilities and a wide range of mobility needs. Each will sit within modest but exceptional landscape design offering access, sensory experience, play and outlook. Light, fresh air and views can have a profound impact on wellbeing, and the clients of these buildings are no different.
The design workshops themselves have been a delight. The working model quickly became the centre of discussion, allowing participants to explore and engage far more meaningfully than any CGI ever could.
These are joyful projects, and a privilege to be part of, shaped as much by the energy and insight of the staff who care as by those who will use the spaces themselves.
