“This is the transitional zone, the threshold between house and institution… The soothing quality of domestic scale is the antidote to the alienation and anxiety caused by large institutional spaces.”

Mark Wakely, Dream Home, Allen & Unwin, 2003

The loss of memory as a result of dementia has a profound effect on the way people experience their environment. With the design of two specialised aged care hostels at Hammondville, The Pines and the Meadows, Allen Jack+Cottier and the Hammond Care Group collaborated to create an ‘architecture of reassurance’ for people in the middle stages of dementia.

The hostels set a new benchmark in dementia design and the provision of aged care environments. The design actively promotes the building environment as both prosthetic (enabling the individual by compensating for dysfunction) and therapeutic (aiding treatment and healing), and maintains quality of life through dignity, independence, safety and family participation.