Holland in a day

Well, we didn’t quite do that, but we covered a lot of territory, going from the Hague south to Rotterdam and then north to Groningen (near the border with Germany) and back to the Hague.

The experiences were breathtaking in terms of design, architecture and scale but the extent of the difference from our local setting left us wondering what we could learn and apply.

Oranjehof in Roterdam is the equivalent of a UK extra care facility (independent living, community facilities and services delivered to apartments from in-house). It had beautiful, minimalist design with very tasteful colour schemes. The sheer design brilliance had eradicated the dreaded instituionalising handrails form the apartment corridors and gave the effect of being in a hotel.

The apartments were unbelievable - huge and stunning with brilliant light streaming in. These were way out of the league of any social housing proposition in Australia.

The apartments and care facilities were separated into two wings with the restaurant and offices in the middle. Although this meant that the apartments were accessed through the "institutionalising" common entry, the design was so good here that the residents would merely feel they were entering a hotel lobby.

This structure was perfectly integrated into the surrounding built form so that its use was indistinguishable from surrounding apartment blocks. This was great, but really begged the question as to why you would want to group all of the older person's apartments into the one building rather than distribute them across the various local apartment blocks.

The next stop was de Plussenburgh, which I loved and was an architect's wet dream. It is a funky tower block for wealthy occupants and therefore had no real relevance for us. Some of the residents served us coffee in their amazing community room with the world's most colourful, yet tasteful, carpet. They looked happy living there and why not!

Finally, we travelled 5 hours round-trip to visit de Rokeade/Maartenshof in Groningen. This complex has a commercial tower block, a social housing wing, various levels of extra care and residential care, restaurant, fitness centre, child care centre - basically the lot. The funding and construction of the housing was the first example we've seen so far that was the same as our system. The extremely groovy tower block was built on land bought at commercial rates and built with no government subsidy. The apartments were then sold and the profits used to construct 51 social housing units on the same complex. Anyone can buy into this block although there is obviously more incentive for older people. There is a covered "secret passage" that takes you discretely from the partment block to the community centre/care complex. I don't know what to think of this. It means the apartment block residents never need to see the care facilities if they don't want to, but can access them direct and under cover if they do wish to. It makes sense but it somehow suggests that it is "shameful" to go to the community facilities.

The foyer area to the complex is like a larger than life architect's fantasy. It is decorated with huge signage letters, huge standard lamps and a library wall with a huge book motif. It really seems to work as it was the best used foyer and restaurant area we'd seen. We felt its design must have made the facility interesting and welcoming to younger members of the community and must compensate in their eyes for the fact that the space is dominated by old people, walking frames etc.

I asked the facility manager whether whether this wonderful design actually appealed to the generation of residents who had to use it. She was sympathetic to this question and responded that she was working on some plans to make the space warmer and more intimate for older people.

The care facilities were very spacious and beautifully appointed. The funding model must be very different! There are two staff for each cluster unit of 8 residents. The standard of care is fantastic with these ratios. The staff were cooking meals with the residents around the kitchen. Our inspectors would not let us do this due to our "duty of care" or "not to care" as it actually works out.

Thoughts from the day:

Excellent design can overcome barriers to providing a true sense of independent living co-located with care;

While there is a lot of money to throw at good design here, the build cost in Holland is dramatically cheaper than in Australia partly because new construction methods using concrete frames and panels keep the build cost low. It's clear that cheaper construction does not mean the buildings don't look good. Quite the reverse.

Dutch society is different from ours. The housing and care environments seem very sterile to us. People here lead a more ordered life with a lot less privacy. Furnishings and finishes are very minimalist, but to us come across as cold and unwelcoming

Another observation. Never critiicse the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre again. OK, it looks terrible from the outside, but it's very good on the inside. The World Forum in the Hague is terrible on both counts and is like a morgue most of the time. It's nowhere near any shops or cafes and I want to go back to Amsterdam. No such luck, the World Conference has begun!


Ray