Mugdock House Care Home

Mugdock House Care Home is a new purpose-built residential care home located in the town of Bearsden on the North Western fringe of greater Glasgow.

The main focus of the brief was to create a forward looking, modern and relaxed home for the residents, providing a facility with high quality residential accommodation for elderly people, some with dementia, who wish to live within a facility capable of providing 24 hour live-in care within an attractive, safe and secure environment. The overall budget was £4.3m.
The facility comprises 64 en-suite bedrooms complimented by activity, lounge and dining spaces, hairdressing salon, reminiscence area, assisted bathroom and shower facilities, ancillary accommodation such as dedicated kitchen and laundry facilities and staff facilities.

Consideration of the contextual environment was instrumental in developing a building form with an appropriate scale and material choice to compliment the wider St Andrews Campus development.
The plan and elevational treatment is a study in proportion and scale which has informed the materials chosen, a subtle blend of natural and neutral tones.

The principle continuous walls are of light brick and the recessed bedroom wings in white render to compliment the housing site opposite and adjacent school building.

The south facing courtyard elevations have vertical larch cladding which will weather to mirror the natural form of the mature trees. This larch is separated by areas of glazing in a simple repetitive pattern with both enclosed within an aluminium clad canopy which holds the communal day spaces and provides solar shading and shelter for the residents. The simple L-shaped plan opens the building up to the south affording an open garden space towards the existing mature landscape.
The external space has been carefully considered for the enjoyment of the residents. Paths which loop around sensory gardens with a series of signal markers enable residents to maintain way finding through recognition.

The interior has vibrant colours used throughout, diluting the clinical and institutional feel frequently associated with traditional care facilities. Memory boxes are inset adjacent to bedroom doors and colour coding is used as way finding. The spaces are bright, airy and welcoming with corridors broken in their mid-point by day spaces allowing daylight to penetrate deep into the building. At the end of each corridor are destination points providing focus and daylight as well as allowing views onto the gardens.