A modern Almshouse for a more connected community.

Older persons’ social housing initiative comprising of 57 extra-care homes with shared facilities like a cookery school kitchen, communal dining spaces, meeting rooms, craft areas, and communal gardens with raised beds for allotment style food production. 2025 Stirling Prize Winner.

Appleby Blue, founded and overseen by the United St Saviour’s Charity in Southwark, is a modern almshouse, a testament to community-focused architecture. Its design targeted a 35% reduction in carbon emissions compared to 2013 Building Regulations.

The building’s fabric was optimised for thermal performance. The layout centres on a communal courtyard garden. Facing the busy A2206, a five-storey northern block houses communal and shared spaces. This positioning makes them visible and easily accessible to the broader community, while also forming a visual and acoustic shield for the garden. A lower two-storey southern block ensures year-round sunlight for the garden and main block. South-facing façades maximise daylight with solar shading to prevent overheating, and thermal mass for passive cooling in warmer weather and at night, helping regulate indoor temperatures. 

The building promotes natural ventilation. Double-height communal areas enhance cross-flow, while glazed corridors function as tempered winter gardens, opening in summer to form comfortable spaces to sit and chat.

Below ground, heating, water, and electrical systems run along corridor routes into each flat, with central plantrooms supplying water and heating to local heat interface units for added efficiency. Ventilation is provided by partially centralised roof extract fans serving clusters of flats with automatically controlled airflow. Communal areas feature smart lighting responsive to occupancy and daylight. The building also includes infrastructure for a telecare nurse call system and dual integrated fire systems for residential and commercial zones. Originally designed with CHP, the project evolved over 10 years, transitioning to PV panels that would account for 20% of the building’s carbon reduction through renewable energy.

Appleby Blue reflects a decade-long commitment to sustainable living and community connection, creating a nurturing setting where residents can age gracefully and remain integral to their community.

Awards

2025 RIBA Stirling Prize Winner
2025 RIBA Neave Brown Award for Housing - Winner
2025 RIBA Client of the Year Winner
2025 RIBA National Award Winner
2025 RIBA London Award Winner
2025 Pineapples Award Healthy Homes - Winner
2024 Housing Design Award - Winners of Winners

“We are honoured to receive the RIBA Client of the Year Award for Appleby Blue Almshouse. This project embodies our ambition to support inclusive communities in Southwark through thoughtful, innovative design, and our belief that good design should be available to all. Working closely with Witherford Watson Mann, we’ve shown that historic organisations can be bold and forward-thinking, and that social housing can and should be well-designed and A aspirational.  
The building’s design enables joyful living in the heart of the city, supports our team to deliver high-quality services, and fosters belonging across generations through the shared community centre and kitchen. This award is down to the strength and belief in of our shared vision, our very close working relationship with the architects, as well as our joint long-term commitment to the design principles that shaped every decision. We hope Appleby Blue inspires others to reimagine what growing older in our cities can look like — and to create more places like it across the country.”
Martyn Craddock, Chief Executive, United St Saviour’s Charity

This project is a pair of linked schemes in Brentford, west London catering for the demolition of the former Brentford Police station and its related housing section. In place, the new site will feature the redevelopment of the Watermans Art Centre and also the creation of nearly three hundred homes.

Redevelopment of an exceptional riverside site for high-quality, sustainable housing.

An outstanding new public space for London run by a community enterprise.

Large town centre regeneration scheme next to the crossrail station.

Mixed-use regeneration development in the centre of Maidenhead, comprising 429 homes, a new 5,200m² office building, car parking, 3,400m² of shops and leisure and a new public space at its heart. The project achieved BREEAM ‘Very Good’.

After the successful partnership with developer HUB on the eco-friendly project Abbey Place near Abbey Wood Crossrail Station, Skelly & Couch once again joined forces for One Maidenhead. This collaboration included environmental modelling during the planning phase, followed by client-side monitoring throughout the project.

One Maidenhead met close to Passivhaus fabric standards, with an excellent airtightness further enhanced by façades incorporating solar control in the form of deep reveals, and solar control glazing. These features contributed to low heating needs, allowing for an all-electric scheme. During winter, electric heaters provide warmth, while in summer, a Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) system maintains comfortable indoor temperatures by drawing in fresh air from strategic openings.

A substantial portion of the project’s electrical energy is derived from its large PV array on all roofs, with excess electricity exported. Additionally, a building energy management system with full fault diagnostics was implemented alongside energy sub-metering and low-use water fittings for lower hot water consumption.

One Maidenhead emerges as a catalyst for eco-conscious developments, championing all-electric schemes to pave the way for a greener Maidenhead and beyond.

Skelly & Couch was appointed for Phase 2 of the ongoing renewal of the Gascoigne East estate in Barking, East London.

The project involves a 2-phase redevelopment of a BREEAM ‘excellent’-graded block of offices on Cambridge Heath Road in Bethnal Green. A whole life carbon approach to design significantly reduces both embodied and operational carbon. 

The Bridge Theatre is London's first new commercial theatre of scale for four decades. The 900-seat auditorium is the flagship home of the London Theatre Company, with Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr, who led 12 years of artistic and commercial success at the National Theatre, at its helm.

The project involved the sensitive upgrade of an existing restaurant facility on Covent Garden’s famed Opera Terrace within the historic Grade II*-listed Market Building.

Sustainable centre within a historic landscape

A new centre with a unique, low-tech environmentally controlled and daylit gallery; restaurant, commercial kitchen and retail space. Heated by an air source heat pump and wastewater dealt with on site including a biodiverse swale system. Shortlisted for the Stirling Prize 2019.

Founded in 1977, the park is set in a former quarry on the estate of the 18th-century Bretton Hall. It was the first of its kind in the UK and remains the largest in Europe. The open-air gallery features works by renowned artists such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

To enhance visitor experience and address reductions in public funding, a new visitor center was completed in 2019. Designed by Feilden Fowles, the 2016 Young Architect of the Year, the centre harmonises with the historic landscape while providing space for temporary exhibitions of 20th- and 21st-century artworks.

Skelly & Couch carried out full services design at the high-profile cultural destination, where the building’s internal climate is optimised for natural control as much as possible. Confronted with a site having no gas or drainage connections, a limited electrical supply and restricted services routes and zones around the building, some inventive engineering solutions were required.

Natural ventilation, solar control glazing and a green roof prevent overheating, ensuring a comfortable indoor environment. Inside the gallery, 10,000 unfired clay bricks form an innovative low-energy environmental control system that maintains optimal internal conditions and significantly reduces the reliance on air conditioning.

Complementing this, a sophisticated control system and humidity buffer—incorporating hygroscopic materials—work alongside a standard thermal wheel heat recovery unit to regulate temperature and humidity. A highly efficient scheme was developed using an electric heat pump to deliver both heating and domestic hot water to basins, eliminating the need for conventional hot water flow and return systems and thereby reducing energy consumption by over 50%. Additionally, underfloor heating provides a consistent sense of warmth throughout the space, even during periods of high visitor traffic and cold weather outside.

Designed with sustainability at its core, The Weston preserves the integrity of its setting while enhancing visitor comfort, engagement, and the Park’s cultural offering.

Awards

2019 – RIBA Stirling Prize Finalist

2019 – RIBA National Award

2019 – RIBA Yorkshire Award Winner

2019 – RIBA Yorkshire Building of the Year

2019 – RIBA Yorkshire Client of the Year

2021 – Civic Trust Award Winner

2021 – Civic Trust Awards Regional Finalist (Yorkshire & Humberside).

2022 – EU Mies van der Rohe Award Nomination. It was one of 18 projects longlisted in the UK, among 449 works in 41 countries featured.