Reflecting on Retrofit
By Ian Blake 16 January 2023
During the festive break and embarking on a new year allows us time, both physically and metaphorically, for reflection on the departing year and consideration on how to move forwards into the new one. What are our hopes, our dreams and what do we need to deal with to successfully navigate the future?
The government may have a toppling in-tray of big issues that need urgent resolution, to safeguard all our futures – and none more so than the precarious environmental situation and ongoing energy crisis. With their own deadline for achieving net zero set for 2050 – a target that is gradually gaining focus, but some argue is not sufficiently ambitious - there are many ways in which we should be participating professionally to help meet this. With 80% of the building stock at that date already in existence, the adaption and improvement of these structures has never been more essential.
The Architects Journal have been running their Retro First campaign since 2019, which states “Worldwide, the construction industry consumes almost all the planet’s cement, 26 per cent of aluminium output, 50 per cent of steel production and 25 per cent of all plastics. While the UK construction industry has much to be proud of, it produces no less than 35-40 per cent of the country’s total emissions.” The introduction to the campaign continues by stating “One reason construction consumes so much is because it is based on a wasteful economic model which often involves tearing down existing structures and buildings, disposing of the resulting material in a haphazard fashion, and rebuilding from scratch. According to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), of the 200 million tonnes of waste generated in Britain annually, 63 per cent is construction debris. We lose more than 50,000 buildings through demolition every year and, while more than 90 per cent of the resulting waste material is recovered, much of this is recycled into a less valuable product or material, rather than being reused.”
Undoubtedly the consensus is that we need to re-use more buildings, through their creative adaption and reconfiguration, with not just the energy performance of all existing buildings needing to improve, but also alternative uses found for old and redundant building types, or at least very carefully appraised before blanket demolition.
With creative repurpose at its heart, my new year’s moment of reflection reminded me of a recycled building project that I was project architect on, some twenty years ago. Fountain House is an unassuming brick-fronted, portal framed, 1980s industrial unit, and at the time was under-occupied by Vodafone – partially used for storage. It formed a suite with two other buildings and for operational reasons needed to be retained as part of the group.
At the time of instruction, Vodafone were in the process of constructing their new world head-quarters campus, outside of Newbury’s town centre – an innovative showcase for the then, still rapidly expanding business and one they had almost outgrown even before completion. Our client needed to find a home for their research and development, and within a tight timeframe that coincided with the completion of their new-build campus. It had to be somewhere that could accommodate the mix of desk, laboratory and showcase facilities required and was sufficiently close to their new HQ to integrate operation activity. Fountain House was selected as the candidate – an available yet tired and dated industrial building with 6.5m clear eaves, profiled roof covering, two docking bay doors and a 6m deep two-storey veneer of office accommodation frontage.
There were several development challenges that we creatively overcame to deliver the client’s brief and with considered problem solving, we:
Responded to the large volume and deep floor plan of the industrial unit by installing a mezzanine structure around the perimeter, allowing light to penetrate the centre of a new 2-storey space.
Replaced full-height roller-shutter doors with new windows and added insulated industrial rooflights to increase the extent of natural light within the space and provide beneficial views out.
Upgraded the building fabric’s insulation, in particular the expansive roof – ensuring that the dew point was correctly calculated, avoiding interstitial condensation to the underside of the existing roof.
Designed the mezzanine installation to be completely removeable at the end of the building’s lease, so that it could be installed and demounted without damaging the landlord’s asset.
Created a collaborative workplace that brought together different technical users within a technology business and eliminated silo working – reflective of their working practice requirement.
Successfully convinced sceptical occupiers who felt aggrieved at not having a home in the new HQ
The scheme was commended in the Refurbished / Recycled category at the 2004 British Council for Offices (BCO) awards, which offered some recognition, and suggestion to the success of the scheme. From the client’s point of view however, the key benefits were.
A previously underutilised and partly redundant building that couldn’t be off-loaded from the portfolio, or redeveloped, was brought back into a meaningful alternative and much needed use.
Provision of modern, flexible offices and high-spec laboratory spaces within a portal-framed industrial storage building – that were truly unexpected from the outside view.
Great savings in rental, as the rate paid was for an industrial storage building which at the time was more than four times less than comparable B1 office rates in similar locations.
However, none of this is new as buildings have been adapted and used for alternative occupancies other than those they were originally conceived for centuries. Exponential growth throughout the twentieth century has given us buildings that are already surplus to originally conceived requirements, compounded by recent global events, which have produced seismic social changes that place different requirements on how and where we occupy our building stock. As a society we must embrace these changes and ennoble our creatives to produce adaptive places that tackle carbon emission targets and allow communities to develop and thrive. The skill base for delivering this already exists, without the need of Michael Gove’s new design school – we have the ability to provide urgently required housing in buildings that are reborn, and without trampling heavily and wastefully over our planet’s future.
Photo © Sutton Griffin Architects
References available on request