The Croft, Early Stage Dementia Centre, Newtownabbey

The Croft is a supported residential care scheme located in Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, specifically designed for people living with early stage dementia.

Funded by Choice Housing Ireland Ltd, Northern Health and Social Care Trust, and the NI Executive, the £3.1 million scheme consists of 24 newbuild self-contained apartments arranged in a cluster on a brownfield site.

Designed to benefit the safety, therapy and wellbeing of its residents, the scheme is carefully and suitably landscaped for ease of accessibility and limited maintenance, allowing and encouraging its residents to follow a conventional life pattern.

All apartments have been designed to lifetime home standards. The design surpasses current standards for supported housing and dementia care, setting a new precedent of quality, the challenges of the site and ensures cost targets are met.

The central core of the building contains the main entrance and communal facilities. The apartments are grouped in “communities” of six apartments and are arranged around the central core.

The scheme has been developed as a single storey building is located in the centre of the site. With the four branches of apartment clusters splitting off the core of the building to humanise the scale and reduce the impact of the development on the neighbouring buildings.