The project investigates the role that architecture and the built environment can play in improving the lives of those with Alzheimer’s disease.

Carlisle Alzheimer’s Foundation proposes a network which connects individuals in creative practice with individuals at various stages of Alzheimer’s disease. By developing creative partnerships, the pair can engage in meaningful activities to respond to the challenges of personal identity, occupation, responsibility and inclusion faced by those with Alzheimer’s.

Situated at the Citadel in the centre of Carlisle, the foundation operates as the nucleus of Alzheimer’s care and research throughout the border regions. The foundation is designed through the activities of making, constructing, performing, eating, cooking, wandering, conversing and socialising. The foundation engages with the local community by providing shared use of its facilities. Through the social environment created at the foundation, individuals with Alzheimer’s are treated as fully integrated members of society. At the core of the foundation is a dedicated research centre which manages the foundation’s network and conducts research through the creative partnerships. Through the foundation, Carlisle will aim to become the most dementia-friendly city in Europe, with interventions at various scales across the city.