Scheldehof Residential Care Centre
Completed in November 2017, the Scheldehof Residential Care Centre is a transformative development in the Dutch city of Flushing.
In part encompassing the renovation of a former heavy sheet metal factory, the Scheldehof Residential Care Centre has 55 apartments for somatic care, 6 group accommodation units for psychogeriatric residents and 54 care and/or assisted-living apartments. Significantly, the ground floor of the centre operates as a public space and includes a brasserie, training room, workshop rooms, hair salon, retail shop, physiotherapy room, film and theatre room.
The design of the project was led by award-winning architectural practice Atelier PRO. The practice had previously worked with the same client, WVO Zorg, on a similar, successful project. Speaking to Premier Construction, architect-director Dorte Kristensen commented:
“We came to the conclusion; if you don’t use the old factory hall then you will always have a building in a very bad condition on your front step. You don’t want that so the client bought the old factory hall and a piece of land next to it.
“What’s very special about this place is that we have a ground floor that is a public area. The people who live there obviously use the ground floor but you have people from the city using the ground floor as well.
“You cannot venture out into the city so in order to make this a nice place to stay and make it a home rather than a hospital. They are trying to get people from the city into the building. You only have to venture down one floor to be part of a community, that’s the idea.”
The response to the project since it was completed has been hugely positive, with praise for both the care and community aspects. In the industry, the project has been recognised with a number of award nominations, including at this year’s WAN Awards in the ‘Healthcare’ category. Dorte said she was proud of this recognition but more proud of how the space has been received by patients:
“There’s a huge winter garden and around this winter garden is where all the people with dementia are living. They have a big area where they can move around. The move from one unit to another, they can go out to the garden and then can even go to the community rooms because they can’t pass the reception desk.
“I was recently standing in the garden with a lady with dementia. She was telling me how beautiful everything was and it was so sweet. That’s why we do it. The WAN Award nomination is nice but it was much nicer to see the lady calm and happy.”
