Building brain wave

On an innocuous looking site in the east end of Glasgow a rather remarkable building could soon begin to take shape. Designed by Collective Architecture for Loretto Housing Association, a striking, brightly brick-clad modern housing complex is currently being mapped out - for a small but rising section of Scottish society.

The £5.1 million development, which is being funded by a £2.9 million housing association grant from Glasgow Council, £600,000 from the Greater Glasgow & Clyde Health Board, and Loretto Housing Association borrowing £1.6 million from banks, is planned to provide a safe, comfortable home for people with alcohol-related brain damage. ARBD, which describes a group of conditions brought on by heavy drinking, affects a growing number of Scots; 538 official cases were recorded in 2007, a figure now suspected to be in the thousands. Experts predict rising cases of younger people with ARBD as teenage drinkers grow older, as well as more cases among middle-aged home drinkers who regularly get through a bottle or two of wine a night.

Until recently, however, there have been few facilities in Scotland designed specifically for the needs of people with this condition. In 2008, 10 beds for ARBD sufferers became available through the Glasgow Addiction Services Partnership, at the newly opened Crannog Care home in Drumchapel. It is run by the Mungo Foundation, a Glasgow-based charity that provides care and support to members of the local community.

In the Tollcross area of the city the Collective-designed building will provide a further 22 beds for ARBD sufferers. Architects Ewan Imrie and Fiona Welch have been working closely with Richard Pollock, a partner at the Edinburgh-based architecture firm Burnett Pollock and director of architecture at Stirling University’s world-renowned Dementia Services Development Centre.

With his help, Mr Imrie and Ms Welch have designed a series of studios they hope will offer a sense of security to residents taking their first steps out of hospital. They also hope the building will fit into the local community, with four family-sized houses included as part of the development providing much-needed homes and a continuous housing frontage along the Tollcross Road.

Glasgow Council gave the plans the go-ahead in March but, perhaps inevitably, they have not progressed without controversy.

Local opposition

‘We had a public meeting where a lot of residents were very concerned about the development, in terms of the people it would be housing,’ explains Ms Welch. ‘There was a loud feeling of, “I don’t want this next to me”. At the end of the day, though, the success of these places depends on them being part of the community. Some people suggested putting the development next to an out-of-town Tesco, and we asked, “would you want to live there?”.’

For Mr Pollock, too, it’s essential that ARBD sufferers are properly understood. ‘We all need a sensitive and comforting domestic environment to function better. Often, ARBD sufferers’ ability to understand what’s around them is a bit impaired, therefore an environment where they can just say, “I’m not too sure what I was doing but there are some comfy chairs, with a nice view there, I’ll just sit down and regroup.” It is very necessary.’

While the conditions grouped under ARBD, including Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a brain disorder caused by a lack of vitamin B1 (thiamine), are not strictly related to dementia many of the symptoms are similar - such as short-term memory loss and resulting confusion. Surroundings can have a huge part to play in mitigating this, says Mr Pollock. He describes how any one of us might feel in an unfamiliar airport or train station, rushing for a connection, needing to take cash out of the ATM and suddenly forgetting our PIN number. For sufferers of ARBD, all sorts of everyday places can spark this kind of panic. There are some basic design principles he recommends to ease this, such as doors with windows rather than signs - so the resident can see, from the cups on the tables, that they’re about to enter the dining room.

Such common sense has been put to good use in the designs for the Tollcross project; in each studio there are two doors to the bathroom, one from the living room side and one from the bedroom side. The studios themselves are clearly laid out and open-plan, so the resident can always tell where they are. And in common areas, corridors are as wide as possible with the minimum of hidden corners.

Outdoor atmosphere

One of the features those involved in the project are particularly excited about is the relationship between each studio and its outside space. All 22 studios open directly on to a south-facing external courtyard, with planters and raised beds on the upper terrace and a relaxed, grassy seating area below.

‘The evidence of how important outdoor space is to dementia sufferers is unequivocal,’ says Mr Pollock. ‘The fact we keep half our older population permanently locked indoors is appalling, and is known to be bad for their health.’

The planned development at Tollcross is due on site in August. Just like the one now operating in Drumchapel, it is a much-needed step towards the way we will need to care for people suffering from ARBD in the future. As numbers of ARBD cases increase along with cost of care, the issue is rising to the top of the politicians’ agenda, too. But most of all, better design for ARBD sufferers makes life an easier place to be.

Tellingly, Ms Welch mentions that at the end of a public meeting, some local residents who’d been silent throughout came up for a chat. ‘What was interesting was that a lot of people said my brother’s got this problem, my uncle’s got this problem, and it’s great there’s going to be a service for them.’