Planning successes

We are thrilled to have been awarded planning for three quite different projects over the last few weeks – a re-imagination of a community church, a low energy house renovation and a town house reconfiguration. To get planning is such a positive milestone in the design process, it definitely is something we like to celebrate.

At St Lukes Church in Portsmouth, Hampshire, our design will enhance the engagement of the church building with the local community, making the space more welcoming and restful for visitors. Our scheme has been specifically designed to embrace a phased build, so the work is achievable in stages as the church is able to raise funds.

In Brixham, Devon, we have been granted our second planning approval, this time for Courtyard House, a traditional townhouse that needed some work to rationalise the layout and maximise the coastal views. The design focuses on reworking the internal space, to draw in natural daylight and help make the tall, thin house feel more spacious, a key design feature is the introduction of an internal courtyard to bring landscaping into the home whilst making sense of the steep site.

Our final approval to celebrate is for Cedarwood, a low energy home in Twyford, Hampshire set within the South Downs National Park. The project will reconfigure the existing home, making the space more suitable for the needs of the growing family. The design also concentrates on upgrading the sustainability of the home, to create a low energy dwelling, work includes increased insulation throughout, replacement glazing and a new roof. An external colonnade is to be added to the south side, to help mitigate overheating during the warmer summer months, which also creates a covered outdoor space that extends the time the clients can use the garden.

We are looking forward to sharing further updates of these three projects as they progress onsite soon.

Design and De-Growth

This post, written by Amanda Moore in collaboration with Studio BAD Architects, explores reasons to work towards a frugal architecture. Four design case study projects will follow, in separate posts, covering a variety of sectors in order to interrogate the credibility of a rebalance between the amount of construction and end user ‘benefit’.

It has been long-established in human society that growth is innately linked to progress. It may be a natural urge within us to grow and produce.

Rising GDP is linked to growth and political success. However, it is also being linked to rising environmental impact in terms of increased materials and energy needed to produce and use goods. Should we scrap using GDP as a measure of success in favour of a happiness index, (www.world happiness.report), if we really feel the need to rank ourselves against other countries?

De-growth is an economic theory born in the 1970s which looks at the merits of shrinking economies and saving the earth’s resources. There is good reason to fear de-growth, being able to pay for public services through taxation for example. Should we reduce production and growth and hence our working hours? Or, can we have the same amount of a greener-growth?

If we need financial growth to pay for services, can there be a reduction in some less beneficial sectors such as carbon-intensive food production including meats, cheap fashion and other cheap products and new-build construction? Could we see an increase in other sectors such as skills and education, leisure, health, public transport and other services which are less carbon-intensive by nature and may provide more satisfaction and enjoyment to end-users.

In architecture, should there be a post-growth movement? Architects Declare notes a pledge to ‘Upgrade existing buildings for extended use as a more carbon efficient alternative to demolition and new build whenever there is a viable choice’. This architecture wouldn’t serve to start with maximising building on a site for profit, but look to re-use existing buildings and sites for maximum gain and enjoyment to end users. Should this idea be part of the RIBA and ARB’s ethics codes?

Within the various large practices I’ve worked for,  projects mainly focused on maximising the amount of building on a site in order for the client to afford the construction costs and make a profit, particularly if expensive demolition and foundations were involved. Production to afford production. More construction is seen as the only ‘viable’ choice by many developers.

Architects may start with a smaller budget project and then encourage their client to go for a much larger one. This in part ensures a steady stream of fees, a bird in the hand is better than a hundred competitions in the bush. Charging based on a percentage of construction value rather than man-hours used can encourage architects to push clients to go for more construction. Taking on bigger and bigger-costed projects with the greater indemnity insurance and staffing requirements that can entail can then result in practices having to continually power up and up like a pyramid scheme, working to keep a bloating practice afloat.

More time should be spent on the feasibility stages of built environment projects to determine the actual needs of the local community and do the building work actually required, then determining the lowest embodied and operational carbon options. This feasibility service by architects should always be paid for by clients, not given by architects in the hope of winning/creating a lucrative  and prestigious project to work on at the end.

A friend who isn’t an architect once asked me, ‘haven’t architects built all the buildings?’ which seemed like a naive comment at the time. In actuality, there ARE a lot of buildings, and refurbishment and reuse could have been employed on most of the large projects I have worked on in practice before starting work as a freelancer, bar railway infrastructure projects.

Nowadays, most of the projects I work on are light-touch public space projects, installing artworks and outdoor furniture to activate underused spaces. Many are refurbishments, particularly for church buildings which require adjustments for custodians to carry out community-serving activities. Refurbishment has been forced onto many Christian churches who are trapped within their large, beautiful, historic listed buildings which are difficult to heat in the UK winters. Light-touch approaches over demolition are the only viable ones such as partitioning parts of the building which can be more efficiently heated, or using buildings seasonally. Going in with large and expensive technology such as air source heat pumps may also not be the best solution for older, less airtight and insulated building stock and may not solve the carbon problem when there is no wind or sun to run them in winter. At Studio BAD we work as a network of disciplines including design, building physics, building services, planning, costing and delivery/material sourcing from the outset to evaluate and test the best options in terms of cost, community benefit and environmental impact.

Materials should also be specified in relation to the lifespan of the building or it’s intended use, ie; is carbon-intensive concrete required for a new building or refurbishment which may only be used for 10 years, is a client willing to use materials which are less carbon-intensive but require more maintenance? Do buildings have to be made of the most robust/static and maintenance-free materials to retain their financial value to a client?

So, what are architects offering clients and the community and what could they offer with frugality being given priority in their design processes? Can they still add value? Can this value be credibly measured by social and community impact? If it is still financial value to the landowner, should architects be paid in relation to how much money they actually save the client rather than spend in terms of the amount of building work which needs to be done?

Building Trends for 2023

THE AGE OF DEEP RETROFIT AND REIMAGINED EXISTING BUILDINGS

I was asked to predict the a key trend for 2023, by Homebuilding & Renovating Magazine. The one trend I can see being high on all those self-build enthusiasts list this year, is deep retrofit of existing buildings.

We are already seeing this in the self-build industry, where homeowners and those investing in new properties and projects are looking to invest in the fabric of their buildings so that they can save energy in the long term. This is in response to the challenging times we face, with energy costs, rising inflation and how this impacts on construction costs.

So this may include new triple glazed windows, insulating the fabric of a building first, existing walls, roof and floor. It makes sense to put investment into the existing envelope of the building first, before investing in the interiors such as kitchens, bathrooms, lighting and decoration. There is a move to upgrade building fabric now, so that money can be saved and put aside for further improvements on buildings.

We are working with many clients on existing buildings and a phased approach or meanwhile delivery is becoming more prevalent where funds are prioritised to invest on upgrading elements, prior to delivery of perhaps new elements and extensions. In some cases, extensions may be built up to a shell level, so insulated and weather tight, until funds become available to complete and install finishes.

I think we will see a continuing trend for client’s and architects, being smart, taking these moves in order that the continuing pressure on budgets energy, material costs and interest rates, will simple mean that this has come out of a necessity, to have a clear strategy of how you plan your self-build refurbishment, sourcing and prioritised affordable materials, in an age where materials are constantly increasing.

St Margaret’s Church – Phase One Completed.

‘Come as you are, no perfect people allowed in this church’

 

The first phase of our St Margaret’s Church redevelopment is coming to a close. This project has been such a journey. We are so proud to see the physical changes implemented into the building but also to have been part of the design journey the whole community has taken.

We were commissioned to undertake a complete architectural overview of the existing church, a Victorian church with a 50’s front extension. The building was in need of an overhaul, to revitalise it, make it more welcoming and more fitting for the array of community needs. More information on the building refurb can be found here.

Last month saw a milestone moment in the project with the polished concrete floor installation throughout the whole ground floor of the church. The interior has been transformed, the floor unifies the interior and the highly polished surface brings a contemporary edge to the traditional heart of the church.

The floor was installed with trenched underfloor heating, placed in zones and the concrete gives the thermal mass needed to heat this system. One of the key requirements for this phase was to introduce internal heating to the church, after listening to the community and their requirements we opted for underfloor heating as it gave full flexibility for the internal space, with the zones allow the heating to be adjustable across the interior.

Other new facilities which have been completed in this phase include toilets, baby changing facilities, a new kitchen and café and new internal lighting which have been recycled from a Russian factory. Very simple robust and movable furniture has been created as ‘meanwhile’ solutions, the multi-functional furniture can be used across the church offering flexibility of use across the community spaces such as the café, children’s soft play or the food bank. The bespoke units are crafted from birch plywood, on wheels which have created a fully adjustable interior space for the church.

We are so thrilled that Phase One of St Margaret’s Church is nearing completion, this was one of the first large scale community projects that Studio : BAD Architects were commissioned to work on and has become quite a personal project for us. The project has inspired us in so many ways, how the community has embraced the change and future plans for their church; how the client has engaged with the design journey and now driving design forward across the whole church and seeing the building reborn, reusing a sustainable preexisting building.

The next phase includes a revised front entrance, the designs have been submitted for planning and we hope to start on these in the new year.

Image credit: Andrew Malbon

https://www.stmagscc.uk/

Ecology of Communities lecture for PASS Portsmouth

I was delighted to take part in the PASS (Portsmouth Architecture School Society) series of lectures around the ‘Ecology of Communities’ last month. As a part time academic I feel it is important to continue to engage the next generation and to inspire those coming through. Others who have been part of this lecture series have included Piers Taylor, James Dale, Jo Hagan and Spark Architects. The whole series can be found on YouTube

 

‘In this time of uncertainty, we need more tolerance, compassion, and trust for each other since we all are one. Otherwise, humanity will face an even bigger crisis’

Ai Weiwei, Humanity

 

As a practice we have been fortunate to work on several community based projects, such as October Books, Bedford Place and St Margaret’s church, each quite different, with their distinct set of design aims, but all with driver to engage with their local community.

Recently we have been working on a feasibility for a mini masterplan of the Bedford Place district of Southampton. The area is set at the opposite end of town to the large shopping malls and has a reputation for being an independent district, with handsome Grade II listed buildings and with boutique retail offering and local restaurants. Due to the Covid outbreak many of the streets were closed to cars earlier this summer to allow for extra social distancing and additional outdoor seating. Initially this was a temporary measure by the council, done in haste and without much thought to the aesthetics, we were brought onboard to look at on-going street activation and animation.

Our recommendations included painting the concrete bollards, originally quite bleak but now bright and colourful, even acting as a draw to bring people to the area to see and engage with it. Our street activation plans have gone further to address the signage, put up street bunting, paint the road, increase planting and set up a series of events throughout the year to use this space. We see this as a huge opportunity for Southampton to create a distinctive district, with a unique sense of place which will draw people in, helping to improve the local economy.

This type of project is highly emotive, whenever there are discussions regarding reducing car access it makes people very passionate as we are a nation addicted to our cars. This is not a new thing, it is easy to find videos from Amsterdam in the 1970’s of locals getting violent at the new pedestrian streets, an area we now look at so positively.

It is however important to listen to the community and their concerns, to really hear what they are saying and reflect on their fears. As an architect it is important to not bring your ego or believe you know the solution from the start, I believe you can learn a great deal through listening and responding to issues, not only will you gain better community engagement in the project but it often makes for a far richer project.

Take a listen to the whole webinar here, it covers a lot more including an interesting Q&A session at the end which covers politics, dyslexia, collaboration, sustainability and even imposter syndrome.

The lecture can be seen here on YouTube. 

PASS lecture

The benefits of reusing and repurposing existing buildings

Recently I was invited to take part in the MESH energy webinar series where I talked about the benefits of upgrading and repurposing existing buildings. At a time where the conversation around the environment and climate change is happening across society as a whole, I am always surprised that the design sector is not discussing this issue in more detail and facing it head on with positive solutions.

We have been working on several varied projects that are reusing a current building. Just by looking at the statistics from Historic England, it is astonishing how damaging it is to build a new building when there is an alternative and environmentally better solution.

‘Compared to a refurbishing a traditional Victorian terrace, a new building of the same size produces up to 13 times more embodied carbon. This equates to around 16.4 tonnes of CO2 which is the equivalent of the emissions released by driving 60,000km’

The design approach to repurposing a building is quite different, each project will bring its own challenges and a successful refurbishment is able to turn these into opportunities. Within our ‘October Books’ project, which has repurposed an old high street bank into a community book store, it was not possible to remove the old walk in vault from the building so this was integrated into the interior design and is now used as the storage room with the old door kept in place as a feature behind the service counter.

Our St Margaret’s church project in Southsea, Portsmouth, is nearing completion of Phase 1 of their refurbishment, thermal upgrade, extension and repurpose to deliver a church that could meet the needs of its congregation. The building had no central heating installed, to retrofit this we decided the best solution was an air sourced heat pump and trench underfloor heating, laid in zones across the building. This solution gave us full flexibility across the floor space which was essential for this building. In keeping with the need for internal flexibility we have designed ‘mean-while’ solutions such as seating, screens and even a café on wheels, this allows the interior of the church to be configured and used as the community needs, with future proofing the design and also reducing the costs.

As we had to remove the old parquet flooring, to allow for the underfloor heating and a polished concrete floor, we were delighted that we were able to repurpose it and sell it on. Not only is this environmentally positive but it also raised much needed funds for the church building project.

In each project we believe the key to success has been achieved through two way communications, through deep listening we are able to really understand what people are saying which often unlocks the potential to a space.

The full webinar can be viewed here

‘If you help one person, you help humanity’ Ai Weiwei