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St Joseph’s Home

Text description provided by SAA Architects Pte Ltd

Client’s Brief

The existing 139-bed St. Joseph’s Nursing Home was to be redeveloped into a 400-bed facility containing both general nursing home beds and dementia-specific beds, while retaining one annex block and existing chapel.

St Joseph’s Hospice at Dusk. Image © Aaron Pocock Photography.

Challenges

One of the main challenges was to preserve the familiarity of the old home, which was a single-storey built environment in a lush, open, greenery-filled compound. The new home also needed to be optimised for the comfort of the residents and staff while addressing the needs of each category of residents.

Design Intention

St. Joseph’s Home is a person-centred home that upholds the values of human dignity. The design approach held the preeminent principle of providing a simple, efficient, functional, low maintenance and well-conceived public building.

Top section final.

The design approach focused on three key pillars: 

Designing for Community

In order to preserve the nature of the home, the design incorporated and strengthened the existing Chapel as a beacon for the whole redevelopment. The Chapel is the spiritual heart of the nursing home, with the design positioning it as the physical heart. With the new facility banding around the Chapel, it created a constant dialogue between the old and new, and established the Chapel as a symbol of love, hope and faith.

Green Sanctuary and Chapel. Image © Image © Aaron Pocock Photography.

Terracotta screens on the façade of the new building also created a material connection to the Chapel, which is clad in a similar tone of red. Sightlines for both the bedrooms and communal pockets of gardens on each floor are directed towards the Chapel to enhance this relationship. Though the architecture’s functionality directs the home toward the future, the Chapel’s visual presence is a reminder of its initial mission to provide elderly care with dignity.

Sectional Perspective.

The typical environment of a ground floor, along with pockets of living spaces, social corners and generous greenery, were also integrated onto every storey. This enables residents to enjoy their environment regardless of the floor they live on. Smaller clusters of beds also created a home-like environment.

Family & Cluster.

The scale, nature and characteristics of each space were carefully factored into the design, to address the needs of each category of residents.

A Typical bedroom layout. Image © Aaron Pocock Photography.

Every bedroom was also orientated at an angle determined by the prevailing winds and natural lighting to allow natural ventilation and provide optimal comfort. Varying setbacks and room openings also maximise cross ventilation in each bedroom, while maintaining privacy between the bedroom clusters. This formation not only introduced small and intimate alcoves between bedrooms where residents can call their own, but created a welcoming environment for the residents, staff and the community.

Cluster.

Special attention was given to the bedrooms for residents with dementia as they tend to be the most sensitive to their environments. Landscapes of various types and scales were tailored to respective user groups depending on their needs, to cater to different experiential needs of the user groups.

Designing for Mobility

Wide and unobstructed corridors run around the periphery of each floor to facilitate residents’ mobility around the home. Bedridden residents are given a chance to enjoy the sunlight as the wide corridors allow caregivers to wheel their beds around, giving them the dignity of being able to enjoy the outdoors.

Wide corridors allow easier movement for wheelchairs and bedridden residents. Image © Aaron Pocock Photography.

The lush landscaped corridors on every level provides an ever-present closeness to nature that is normally experienced only at ground level or at a park, bringing the healing touch of nature to the residents regardless of the level they live on.

A continuous void that gives spatial porosity is further enhanced with ample daylighting. Image © Aaron Pocock Photography.

The corridors, living rooms and bedrooms were designed with sufficient setbacks from the external façade to allow activities to continue even on rainy days with strong winds. Residents can also experience the full sight, sound and smell of nature, during rain or shine, while in the comfort of shelter.

Bedrooms are offset from the terracotta screens, allowing sunlight in but keeping the rooms away from rainfall. Image © Aaron Pocock Photography.

Designing for Dignity

The facilities at St. Josephs Home were designed to help the elderly maintain their dignity, mental and emotional wellbeing by facilitating participation in activities such as playing, art and crafts, feeding pets and gardening.

St Joseph’s Home is the first in Singapore to integrate a childcare centre into a nursing home. Image © Aaron Pocock Photography.

Notably, St. Joseph’s Home is the first in Singapore to integrate a childcare centre, which is located in the original annex block of the home. A common canteen area and an inter-generational playground with wheelchair-friendly equipment were built to foster social interaction between the children and the residents. As part of the inter-generational model of care, the home provides opportunities for residents and children to interact daily.

These experiences inculcate in the children a sense of compassion and empathy while the human connections promote emotional wellness and foster a sense of dignity among the residents.

Sky Deck. Image © Aaron Pocock Photography.

The landscape and living spaces were also designed to be mood lifting through the colours, furniture and greenery used. The ‘home in a garden’ was designed to create a comforting and stress-free ambience conducive for healing and rest. The communal gardens, nature-lined corridors, planters and vertical greenery were also made accessible to bedridden and wheelchair-bound residents.

1st storey plan.

Another example of dignified care is the Peace Room – a holding room for residents who have passed on. It is significantly located at the home’s entrance to respectfully allow residents to enter and leave the building the same way as the living. This is guided by the home’s philosophy of treating every person with dignity, even in death.