No more magnolia
The brief from Clarion Housing Association – low-cost retrofit solutions to shift a hard-to-find community centre in Penge from institutional to inclusive and from loud to lively, and put it on the map.
The solution?
- A co-design process with the Clarion Community Assets and Playplace Teams, consultation with the local community and collaboration with Benz Roos at Speirs Major, Marianne Shillingford at Adzko Nobel/Dulux and Shane Cryer at Ecophon. From conversations with stakeholders, although everything was ‘fine’, the space was a source of friction and frustration when it could have been an active support.
Together, we came up with a plan…
- Replace uniform low-grade linear lighting with dim to warm fittings, spots and a colour-changing strip along the back wall to create clear zones and support different activities – from boxercise and gaming to art clubs and baby showers.
- Repurposing those linear fittings to create a ‘starburst’ lighting feature on the side elevation, a friendly landmark that visitors to the centre say they head for during the dark winter months.
- Combine with acoustic panels to bring reverberation times down from an ear-rattling echo to a primary school classroom standard, supporting improved communication, especially for older adults or those for whom English is not their first language.
- Paint the doors and window surrounds in sunshine gold and a pop of colour around the noticeboard – the most talked-about and appreciated – sign of the change.
- Add a lick of paint to the walls inside too, with a palette of soft grey, terracotta and yellow designed by Marianne Shillingford – the lobby is bright and welcoming without being overwhelming – and not a hint of magnolia in sight.
- Declutter and repaint the office, upgrade the lighting and go shopping at Ikea for sit-stand desks, task lighting and noticeboards to create a more professional and comfortable base.
One year on, with most of the headaches forgotten, it could be the ‘hawthorn effect’ – the benefits of simply paying attention to what an employee needs – but chatting to the PlayPlace team, they seem more confident, proud and engaged with the space than when we first met.
They’re proactively using the zones to support different activities and difficult conversations, making sure damage gets fixed fast, keeping corners clear of clutter and using the windows to display real objects instead of laminated posters. The area in front of the centre seems tidier, too.
Lessons learnt?
- Start with why – inviting the real experts – the building users themselves – to share what matters most to them and exploring the art of the possible together with an interdisciplinary team leads to focused, efficient, and cost-effective solutions.
- Continuity counts – making sure there’s at least one person on the client and consulting team from start to finish keeps the vision alive.
- And the devil is in the detail – ‘non-standard’ tasks like trimming acoustic panels and assembling flat-pack furniture throw a spanner in the works. Remote controls and rechargeable fittings add a hassle factor and workload for a busy team.
And it’s tempting to go for magnolia and ‘bog standard’ lighting solutions in challenging spaces where money is tight.
But thinking outside the box and working as a team can transform a space into a place without costing the earth.
Do get in touch if you’d like to learn more.
Priming the pump
You need funding to carry out research to validate proof of concept – and most funding bodies need proof of concept before they’ll invest in the research…
Add to that the complexity of obtaining ethics approvals to engage with vulnerable populations such as older adults living with dementia, the cost of travel to run the tests onsite, and the near-impossibility of any meaningful randomised control when it comes to lighting (the subjects can see something is different), it’s no wonder there are so few publications about the impact of circadian lighting on sleep and other health outcomes in residential care.
Perhaps it’s surprising that any tenacious researchers make it over the line and into print at all!
So it’s a privilege to work with an enlightened municipality and developer team in Sweden building a state of the art 94-bed residential care and daycare facility in Nordanstig, a rural community four hours North of Stockholm.
They were so determined to get external validation on the impact of their investment in circadian lighting and other design and service innovations that they put aside a budget to get the ball rolling, effectively breaking that catch-22. I used that budget to convene an international network of research teams. Just five months later, that investment is paying off.
We’re hosting five micro-projects led by MSc students with Cosmin Ticleanu, Jemima Unwin-Teji and Myriam Aries and planning further research into visual ergonomics later in the year with Dr Hillevi Hemphala. We’re evaluating staff experience and tracking the impact of this provision on regional pathways into dependency, building on existing national and regional frameworks. We’re excited to be working with Professor Helle Wijk and other academics at the new SEK 60-million DEMSAM project, contributing to the development of national guidelines for outdoor environments for residential care.
We’ve been on a mission to harness the power of ambient sensing to generate real-time insights into potential links between environmental conditions and health outcomes while respecting privacy and dignity (and without adding to staff workload). So we’re building an ecosystem of sensors ranging from mattresses and motion sensors to door access, ambient lighting and VOC monitors. This data stream will allow operational teams to fine-tune lighting cycles, thermal comfort and air quality settings once the spaces are up and running, optimising comfort and energy performance – a win-win.
This integrated approach will also support hybrid research methods, combining simulation with data analysis and machine learning from the real world, so that academics and other partners around the world can learn from this living lab without costing the earth.
I’ll be talking about progress to date and our vision for the future at the Arch26 conference at Chalmers University in June. Perhaps see you there?