Lifestyle Manor, Flood Street, Bondi

Abstract

Lifestyle Manor Bondi is a unique advance in architectural design for Australian retirement living. Taking advantage of the dense urban, eastern suburb context, the development strategy built a vital, engaging seniors community. The research focus takes the core of the development for 42 apartments to develop a 'vertical village'. By internally revealing resident movement over four levels through an atrium, the sense of physical, social and visual communication reinforces communality. The practice research approach of Cambell Luscombe emerges from the issues that have influenced retirement living in the past; dominated either by controlling mechanisms of care or by simply housing the older and underprivileged through organizations like church bodies or charities. Our research focused on the attitude of 'ageing with dignity', a design approach (tested successfully over a number of projects, each with markedly different site conditions and aesthetic expressions) with three main attributes : " self-confidence of the residents should be paramount, supported through all architectural decisions; " architecture should be aspirational for residents rather than diminishing in its expression and experience; " retirement living complexes should return suitable gains for their financiers without undermining sustainability of their aesthetic value. In Lifestyle Manor Bondi the ESD strategy maximizes the number of corner apartments with increased access to natural daylighting and cross-ventilation. The complex incorporates rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling system, solar hot water and thermal stack ventilation. The style of the building responds to aesthetic aspirations and memories of senior residents by utilizing a dignified contemporary interpretation of the 'grand' apartment buildings of the 1920s.