Architecture + Interiors
”Windermere had been lovingly run by the one family for over 30 years, we wanted to bring their obvious love and caring for their residents into the new design.
Andrew TalbotBecome.
Windermere Aged Care
Making aged care feel like home
Windermere Aged Care Facility is a family run home that has been providing care for people in the Inner West of Sydney for over 30 years. They approached us to design a complete refurbishment of their existing facility incorporating a 2-storey extension and reconfiguration of existing accommodation to provide an additional 17 beds.
Because it has been a multi-generational family run home for three decades, and prides itself on personal, welcoming care, we strove to bring this to life in the new layout and the design. The result is a highly domestic look and feel with community at its heart.
Whilst many Aged Care providers have moved to predominantly single bed rooms over the last decade in response to market demands, Windermere takes a different approach. As a deliberate response to their residents’ desires to live in a more social, family oriented environment, it has mostly twin rooms which balance privacy and human company. To ensure the new design was people, light and resident community centric, the new floor plan was focused around a new sun filled, North facing garden and living areas.
A major challenge for this project was that the facility had to remain functional with residents still living there throughout, just in slightly reduced numbers. So it needed to be conceived to be possible to construct in a highly considered sequence, whilst providing a high level of safety and ensuring facilities could still be used by all residents throughout the process.
