Some time ago, I wrote an article about my search for a better retirement home (as compared to what we currently have in Singapore.) It seems I’m not the only middle-aged Singaporean concerned about his/her housing situation post-retirement, as the article quickly received views and shares. (It became one of the most popular articles I’ve written for Stacked and the follow-up piece about retiring on a cruise ship was pretty well-received too, a testament to the interest in this topic.)

In the first article, I focused on a lovely retirement village that I had seen in Bath, UK. However, as with many things in life, that loveliness comes at a price, which not everyone may be able to afford. Hence, when I went back to the UK to do research for Tjtakesthetrain, my new site on car-free travel from London, and saw a social housing for seniors development (Appleby Blue) that the Guardian (a British newspaper) compared to an Alpine spa hotel, I thought it would make for an interesting piece.

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Even in Singapore, where social housing (the HDB) receives international acclaim - the New York Times called HDBs “the envy of the world" and over 80% of the population lives in public housing, no one would equate social housing with a “spa hotel.” (Or at least no one I’ve had the pleasure of meeting!)

If you’re not familiar with social housing in the UK, let’s just say they’re not quite the same as the HDB. Only about 17% of the population live in council housing (a type of social housing), for one, and there can be a stigma around living in such a development. (In some cases, getting a mortgage can even be harder if trying to buy an ex-council home.) Appleby Blue is a slightly different type of social housing to council flats, as it’s an almshouse run by United St Saviour’s Charity.

Hence, I was very intrigued by Appleby Blue, and wondered if there was anything we could learn from them to create better homes for seniors in Singapore, so let’s go have a look!

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Here’s a photograph of the exterior of the development - the entrance is located by a bus stop. The development has many glass windows, from which you have a good view of the streets outside, and the people waiting at the bus stop, which increases the senior residents’ feeling of being a part of the local community.

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Here is the community hall of the development. As shown, there’s very little (visual) barrier from the outside (but you can’t hear any road noise at all!) The hall is used for communal events - the charity regularly holds talks here to foster more interaction with the community. Since I have a food blog, Greedygirlgourmet, I obviously have an interest in food and attended an event about “Food and Community” held here. 
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There’s also a community kitchen next to the hall, and (free) food was provided at the talk. There’s certainly nothing like a meal to bring people and communities together. This kitchen is the heart of Appleby Blue and is the cornerstone for residents engagement with each other and with their neighbours. For example, Appleby Blue holds farm-to-table cooking sessions with local schools, using tomatoes from their rooftop garden. Older people without younger relatives can get quite isolated from the world around them, so this sounds like an amazing way to promote intergenerational connection.
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In case you were wondering, this is what we were served, followed by a delicious tiramisu.

Anyway, enough about food, and back to the subject matter on hand: Appleby Blue. It was designed by award-winning architects Witherford, Watson and Mann to “combine radical design with future-proof assisted living technologies to provide self-contained homes that meet the needs of older residents, including those with emerging health conditions, within a flourishing and caring community.” 

Now, as a Singaporean, I’m pretty practical so my first question was: how on earth does a charity fund all this? The answer I got was “by their investments” which I thought was a good model. To generate income, they also rent out their communal facilities, such as the event hall (called the Garden Room), hobby room, board meeting room, Spa room and communal Kitchen. These facilities are very much like our local condo’s facilities. In fact, better than many I’ve seen actually, and are available for the residents to use. Appleby Blue was completed not too long ago, but I am extremely curious to see exactly how self-sustaining it will be in the long run.

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The meeting room.
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The hobby room.
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When I first heard that Appleby Blue had a spa room, my first reaction was “Wow that’s quite luxurious for social housing!” However, after thinking about it, I realised it made sense in a development for seniors as some older folks may have difficulty washing their own hair or getting to the hair salon.
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Something else that made sense was the communal bathroom with a bathtub. It allows residents who enjoy baths to have access to a bathtub even if there’s no space for one in their flat. 

Now, not everyone may see a bathtub as an important amenity to have. However, I think there’s something to be appreciated about “outsourcing” some facilities to the public spaces of a social housing development and allowing people to enjoy access to certain things that they may not have space for in their own apartments. (Especially in a space-constrained nation like Singapore.) The retirement village that we viewed in Bath similarly had studio apartments that residents could rent at a low cost - this allows residents with no space for guest rooms to still enjoy the luxury of having people come over and stay. 

What these “outsourced” facilities would be exactly - whether it’s a bathtub, a guest room, or something else entirely, would of course vary depending on the needs and wants of the residents. This is quite similar to the function rooms found in some local condos, but Singaporean condos tend to have quite “standard” offerings when it comes to facilities, in my opinion, instead of thinking about the actual needs and wants of residents.

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Another public space - I think of this as the reading room.
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The view from the other side of the community hall - you can see why it’s called the Garden room. I visited when it was almost winter, but I can appreciate how this would be a great place for residents to mix and hang out in the summer.
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Long tables in the community hall - somewhat similar to what I had in my University Dining Hall.
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Appleby Blue also runs many one-off and regular activities for residents, such as a Christmas Masquerade Ball. This reminds me of our local Community Centre but, in this case, the CC is located inside the housing development itself, instead of in a separate building. I guess it is somewhat similar to how a CC is within an HDB estate, but as Appleby Blue’s activities are held in a (sheltered) part of the development that all the residents would regularly walk through on a daily basis, it seems like the participation rate would be higher.
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Side note: A branch of Age UK, a charity that seeks to create “a world where everyone can love later life”, is also located right across the street, so the setting is very apt.

Anyway, back to inside Appleby Blue. We’ve been looking at the facilities, so let’s go look at the areas closer to the apartments themselves now.

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Here we are in the corridor outside the apartments. The first thing that struck me was how clean and wide the corridors were. 
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The apartments come with benches and planter boxes outside. Not all the residents are into gardening but many do use them. In HDBs, people can sometimes quarrel over the plants (or other belongings) in the corridor and it seems like having a prescribed area to place plants could help reduce some of this friction.
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As you may have noticed, the entire development is extremely open, and there are windows everywhere, making it feel open, bright, and spacious.
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Here’s the view you get from the windows - that’s the roof garden to the left. We’ll probably end today’s tour there so let’s head over now.
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A better view of the roof garden in the meantime. (Fun fact: Gardening was one of the activities mentioned in Netflix’s Blue Zones documentary about nations with long-lived inhabitants.)
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Something else you may have noticed is that there’s comfortable seating placed everywhere, so residents are encouraged to spend time outside their flats (and thus promote interaction.)
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Remember how I said there was glass everywhere? Even the doors have clear panels, so there’s no sense of separation between the different parts of the building. It’s probably also quite practical, as no one could collapse in a corner and not be seen (and subsequently helped) by someone else. Medical emergencies are, unfortunately, not unknown as one ages. (I do wonder how much time they spend cleaning all that glass though… It was spotless when I was there!)
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Heading over to the Roof Garden.
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The roof garden.
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Lots of seating for people to gather.

You may have noticed that there are no photos of the apartments themselves. Unfortunately, since they were occupied, we couldn’t intrude on the residents’ privacy. However, having seen the external spaces, I have no doubt the flats are all marvellously designed to the highest specifications.

In addition to the social housing flats, Appleby Blue also has 2 studio rooms and I was told that these were being offered to younger residents- apparently, it would be offered to the applicant that they felt could offer the most to the senior residents. (For example, the applicant could be a Yoga teacher who could run classes for the seniors, or maybe a trained medical professional. They were still in the process of selecting the resident when I visited, but I thought this was a terrific, terrific idea.)

This brings us to the end of today’s tour. How did you find Appleby Blue? 

Personally, I left feeling like I’ve found a place I would be very happy to grow old in. I would love to see similar affordable developments crop up in Singapore one day! (Hopefully, before I reach retirement age.)

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