Hendon Care Home, a project with exemplar building performance, provides unique insights into the link between culture-specific needs and bespoke M&E services.

Built and designed for for Jewish Care, a health and social care organisation serving the Jewish Community, the scheme was completed in December 2018. It provides 32 independent living flats, which include 1- and 2-bedroom apartments orientated around a landscaped courtyard and communal gardens, as well as community and staff facilities. 

Working alongside RDT Architects, we provided M&E Engineering for this project.

The MEP design carefully considers the needs of Dementia care users, to accommodate future needs of the tenants, as well as Jewish Ethos for observant visitors and building users. The building is in a suburban borough and the site boundary is strongly defined by neighbouring buildings, neighbouring gardens and a pedestrian footpath, which created challenges for the MEP design and building construction that were successfully addressed.

The energy strategy includes photovoltaic panels and centralised hot water circulation, powered by efficient CO₂ based air source heat pumps.

The building has achieved a BREEAM post-construction 'Very Good' rating and was shortlisted for a CIBSE Project of the Year 2022 Award.

"This was a great project to work on, both demanding in terms of constraints and interesting from a design point, bringing Q-Ton into play. We had the opportunity to learn about Jewish Ethos, and how that can impact MEP design, which was definitely a challenge at times. This ranged from the commercial kitchen having to be twice the normal size to keep Kosher, to how the lift and access control should operate during Shabbat." - Sara Kheradmand, Senior Engineer at Max Fordham