With 44 high-quality care suites, Loveday Belgravia offers residents a home from home. Spanning seven floors, it features several healthcare-focused amenities, including a gym and hydro treadmill for rehabilitation alongside a cocktail lounge, art studio, hair salon and a communal lounge on every floor.

Loveday, the operator, was involved from the outset, bringing their comprehensive design standards from previous care home projects. EPR Architects worked closely with them and developer Amazon Property to challenge and refine these standards, resulting in a care home that exceeds expectations. This collaboration produced a design that goes beyond the initial brief, creating a facility that provides exceptional care while also complementing the surrounding area.

The architecture positively engages with its surroundings, establishing a strong contextual identity while repurposing a previously unusable site. Triple-aspect bay windows with J-curved glazing respond to the site’s context, providing uninterrupted views and maximising natural light. The design softly undulates around a large London plane tree on-site. Preserving this tree posed a significant challenge. To address this, the basement is set back from the site boundary and the primary façades structure is cantilevered over the root protection zone.  

The brickwork complements the building’s form and integrates seamlessly with the local vernacular. Bespoke radius, long-format and precisely cut and bonded bricks create clean corners, openings and reveals within the façade. Each brick was hand-selected and laid to exceed BS and EN Standard tolerances. Coordinating the various façade elements was particularly challenging, but essential for minimising movement joints and panel gaps, managing building tolerances and achieving the building’s distinctive curvilinear shape.

Wellbeing and accessibility are central to the design, which is fully wheelchair accessible, with level access to all terraces and entrances from street level. Passenger lifts provide access to all floors and rooms allow for turning circles around beds and in ensuites. Additionally, wide corridors accommodate wheelchair users and the circular layout prevents dead ends, enhancing the experience for dementia patients. Generous terraces and a sensory garden provide tranquil outdoor space for residents to relax.

The local community is at the heart of this project, with Loveday Belgravia dedicated to fostering strong, lasting connections. The facility supports local businesses by sourcing goods and services from local trades such as butchers, bakers, florists and laundrettes. Beyond daily operations, the project engages with local groups to provide residents with enriching experiences, including gym sessions, art workshops and gardening. Additionally, regular trips to nearby attractions further integrate residents into the neighbourhood.

Sustainability was a key design driver, with the all-electric scheme integrating photovoltaic panels, air source heat pumps and enhanced biodiversity measures to reduce the environmental impact. These features put the project on track to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating.