Alton

The disused site had been left derelict for a number of years and the large adjoining brewery site due to be converted to a housing scheme. The new extra care retirement apartment for McCarthy Stone was carefully designed to facilitate the future regeneration of this area of the Hampshire market town of Alton.

The development provides a total of 56 age restricted apartments with a host of communal facilities, including a residents’ lounge, restaurant with a commercial kitchen, a health and wellbeing suite, function room, guest suite and laundry.

Each apartment benefits from either a private patio or balcony amenity space along with extensive communal landscape amenity spaces.

The form of the building has been designed so that it not only creates a landscaped courtyard but also responds to the complex topography of the site. This is achieved by sub-dividing the roof into a series of pitched elements that give the appearance of a cluster of buildings rather than a single mass. This design concept has been reinforced by the introduction of contrasting metal cladding between the articulated masonry elements, giving the impression of a cluster buildings set within the steeply sloping site.