Pre application discussions were held early in the design and our ideas welcomed. The planning team were keen to see the existing building retained. Two public consultation days have been held in the nearby town hall. The first was undertaken to obtain the views and ideas of the local community and this enabled us to incorporate their vision in our design. The resulting application was well received and was granted planning permission unanimously at the Councils planning committee. The second has been held to get the views of the community on the final finishes including tiles, bathrooms, kitchens and interior design. Cornishman, John Passmore Edwards was a well known Victorian philanthropist who paid for the construction of the Liskeard cottage hospital in 1895. It continued as a cottage hospital until 2005 when it closed and came into the ownership of Caradon District council (Now part of Cornwall County council). Aster were chosen to develop the site as an Extra Care scheme, this will become the first purpose built Extra Care scheme in Cornwall. The original building has been retained and the threshold between new and old has been carefully detailed to provide a glazed single storey link. This exaggerates the movement between the existing and proposed while providing a clear entrance to the new facility. The office accommodation, which attaches to the existing building, is a curved form to exaggerate the new attached to old. The new extensions are angular to further exaggerate the additions. Our main design concept revolved around the layers of history and thus the proposed elevations include layering; protruding bays and set back balconies which have been utilised to further the concept along with careful detailing to ensure each material juxtaposes with adjacent materials. The materials have been carefully selected, with each corner element of the building corresponding to the local vernacular. The palette of materials is simple; render, brick, stone, timber, cladding panels and aluminium. These materials have been detailed to provide a clean contemporary design to the elevations and provide visual contrast to the existing building. The whole design concept was also strongly routed in providing a safe, easily accessible, level access home for the users. Internally the design concentrates on the wellbeing and ease of use for the residents while providing a non institutional feel to the scheme. Our brief was to provide a ‘hotel’ feel to the interior. With this in mind the design provides good sized common areas for dining, a lounge with views over the gardens, hairdressers and hobby rooms which are all retained within the existing building. The existing main front door has been maintained to give access to an outdoor terrace area and the gardens beyond. The proposed extension houses an IT suite/recreational sitting area spreading into the conservatory linking to the sensory gardens, along with staff offi ces, scooter stores, a dedicated medical suite and an acivity suite (gym) easily accessible laundry with access to external private drying area plus the resident’s flats which are all self contained. Dec. 2008 Work starts on site The design aims to create naturally lit internal environment with wide corridors limited in overall length. The corridors allow for numerous resting areas with seating to provide a more private area away from the main communal areas. Two lifts are provided and are close to all flats for ease of use. Early in the design it was agreed to incorporate sprinklers allowing a greater feeling of open space in corridor areas by limiting the number of fire doors thus reducing further obstacles for the residents. Our main design aim was to create a building which made life easier and more pleasurable for the residents. For example we spent a lot of time researching threshold strips in order to find a completely level strip so not to hinder wheeled walkers or provide any sort of trip hazard. Colour has been widely used to help the residents identify different areas and which floor they are on. We have worked closely with a range of partners and stakeholders to consider every element to create a building and environment with the end user at the centre of all our design thoughts. We worked closely with the local architectural liaison officer in order to ensure the building will be Secured by Design compliant. This is an important feature to the older person and the safer we can make the residents feel, the more they will enjoy living here. The client had strong desires to create a low carbon building even though the scheme itself is not being assessed. The intention being that as, a great deal of Cornish residents experience fuel poverty, keeping heating costs as low as possible is a priority. These targets have been achieved by very low ‘u’ values for all thermal elements (Code for sustainable homes level 4 values), whole house heat recovery ventilation units in each fl at and a extremely low air leakage rate (less than 3 m³/hr/m²). The contract operated for this project is the PPC2000 which has proven to be very effective as the whole team has worked hard to create a high quality scheme which we are very proud of and which sets a very high standard for extra care schemes both within the county and nationwide.