The UK’s population is ageing rapidly. Between 2010 and 2030 there is expected to be a 50% increase in people aged 65 or older, and a doubling of people aged 85 or older. In 2013 a Lords Select Committee determined that the country is “woefully under-prepared” for this seismic demographic shift, with inadequate healthcare, welfare and housing provision being some of the key areas of concern in the coming decades. One of the hidden challenges that we face is the effect on increasing levels of loneliness faced by people as they get older. 10% of people over 65 regard themselves as feeling lonely “some or all of the time”, and as this proportion of the population grows, the number of people who feel this way will increase dramatically over coming decades. PegasusLife is the country’s leading innovator in housing for third-age living. In 2013 it commissioned RCKa to design a revolutionary new development in Seaford, East Sussex. The scheme needed to be of exceptional design quality in order to encourage older people to “down-size” from their current homes into accommodation which is better suited to their changing needs, and located at the heart of the community. The specific challenge of how to combat loneliness was a fundamental driver in our design of the Hortsley development. A complex town-centre site required an innovative response to the surrounding context, and our proposal - comprising a carefully-crafted yet robust brick elevation to the busy road to the north - ties together a gently curving streetscape that has for many years been home to derelict industrial buildings. From the south, however, a strikingly different approach: residents and visitors arriving on foot enter through a narrow slot within a flint-knapped wall that completes a small gap in the existing streetscape (left). On entering, a lush and verdant secret garden is revealed, dramatically climbing upwards via a spectacular spiral trellis, concealing within the main stair that rises from the basement to each floor of the development, and linking each apartment to the south-facing gardens below. The entire south-facing elevation comprises a 3.5m wide wintergarden. An innovative fire-engineering design developed by the consultancy team allows us to locate private balconies on the outer edge of the wintergardens, encouraging their use throughout the year. Alternating voids between these terraces increase the effective number of immediate neighbours from two to six, with each terrace benefiting from an immediate visual connection not only to adjacent terraces, but also diagonally upwards and downwards; a simple move that dramatically increases social interaction and directly combats feelings of isolation. Residents are encouraged to occupy and inhabit these spaces; double-height trellises within each void encourage planting to extend the garden upwards. All thirty-eight homes are dual aspect, with an efficient internal layout which maximises daylight and allows long views through the apartment to the outside world.