Pentan Architects have been awarded the RIBAJ MacEwan Award for their design of Severn View Park Care Home, a project that has redefined the experience of care home living. The RIBAJ MacEwan Award celebrates projects that demonstrate a mutual willingness of architect and client to push at the edges of what a typology can be. This project demonstrates the harmonious balance of community, design, and positive resident experience is a remarkable example of this ethos.
Dafydd Tanner, Associate Director at Pentan Architects, has provided the following insight into the design and impact of Severn View Park Care Home.
Resident experience
The communal areas offer a diverse range of scales, character, and outlooks, ensuring they resonate with different residents in different ways. Staff observe that some residents gravitate toward the larger social spaces - like the farmhouse table - while others consistently retreat to a favourite nook. This pattern extends to their dining preferences as well. The lovely thing here is that residents have the option which is so often not the case.
A striking difference emerges when comparing communal spaces here, offering 13m² per resident, to those in typical care homes, where space allocation is significantly lower at just 5m². At Severn View Park, it’s common to find a single resident occupying a communal space, much like in our own homes, where we value solitude as much as shared moments. This stands in stark contrast to the crowded lounges of conventional care homes, which often resemble bustling cafés rather than relaxing living spaces.
Staff/resident relationships
Much has been made about mealtimes and food. Management has observed that this behavioural change of staff and residents cooking together in domestic sized kitchens having the biggest impact on de-institutionalising. Furthermore, cooking has exceeded expectations in almost every way; the quality of the food has increased significantly and the meals are better tasting and much more nourishing. As is it in so many households, preparing and enjoying food together is the main focus of the ‘family’s’ social interaction.
Since opening, the home has developed a cherished Sunday tradition where all residents gather in the ‘village hall’ for lunch. Each household takes responsibility for contributing a part of the meal, reinforcing a strong sense of community and shared purpose.
Community impact
It appears that the home has really embraced the possibilities offered by the ‘village hall’, as a means of drawing in the community and activity. They have adopted a wonderful approach where the hall can be used free of charge by any local organisation, as long as the residents are able to sit in, participate, or observe and enjoy.
As we understand it, organisations that are currently using the space include a mother and toddler group, exercise class, coffee morning, and brass band group. The home is expecting further demand.
A key aim of the project was to immerse residents in the rhythms of everyday life, both the interesting and the mundane, and preserving a sense of familiarity. Nowhere is this more evident than in the village hall’s success. Even the seemingly ordinary, such as watching the local authority’s bin lorries move through the courtyard garden to each household, has become an event, reinforcing the connection to the wider world.
Severn View Park Care Home is a testament to Pentan Architects’ ability to blend thoughtful design with real human connection. By prioritising comfort, choice, and community, this project has set a new standard for care home architecture. We congratulate Pentan Architects on this well-deserved recognition.
Read more about Severn View Park Care Home here.
About the MacEwan Award
The MacEwen Award celebrates projects that demonstrate a mutual willingness of architect and client to push at the edges of what a typology can be.
2025's MacEwen Award shortlist featured an inspiring collection of 12 projects, including a floating events venue, a uniquely accessible Cambridge college, and a woodland retreat built around a repurposed military parachute. Each project exemplified the idea of architecture serving the common good. Explore the full 2025 shortlist exemplifying new ways of pushing typology.
Previous MacEwan Award winners
2024: Hope Street, designed by Snug Architects
A facility for women in the justice system might seem like a prison, but Hope Street is designed as an alternative. Without a safe space, incarceration becomes the only option. Created by Snug Architects, Hope Street offers a supportive environment for women in Hampshire.
2023: Jubilee Pool, a collaboration between Jubilee Pool Penzance Ltd and Scott Whitby Studio
Community action and ambition set this project apart. In 2017, Scott Whitby Studio joined efforts to transform Jubilee Pool in Penzance into a year-round facility, ensuring financial stability and sustainable operations.
Tackling hunger, isolation and the unnecessary waste of food, space, and human potential and against the decline in high streets across the country, Nourish Hub offers a model that might be adopted elsewhere – perhaps with some different ingredients.
