Retro-Fit for Purpose

Who thought we'd only need 12 weeks for this much reflection, reaction and reinvention? 

We at CWa have been so very lucky: loved ones, friends, associates and team members remain relatively safe and well, and we are so grateful for it. Like many I'm sure, lockdown has seen me looking longingly out of the window: Admiring the weather, waving to neighbours, enjoying an explosion of summertime flora and fauna, with clean air, quiet roads and empty skies. It's been a time of daydreaming. Of thinking what could be. 

Three things struck me during this time: 

- As an avid monitor of our national grid, our energy needs dipped only slightly these past weeks- even with such dramatic changes in lifestyle. This is quite significant: If we are to meet commitments to dramatic reduction in CO2 outputs, we need to keep thinking at a national scale: Something only possible at the level of central government. 

- But we are making incredible inroads. At the time of writing, we haven't burnt any coal on the grid for nearly two months- and I remember getting excited by the record of 24 hours only a few years ago! To put this in context, we have burnt coal continually since the industrial revolution. We broke our record for wind generation this January (17129MW), and solar PV generation this April (9680MW). These are exciting steps, on a long journey- but absolutely in the right direction.   

- This brings me back to my window. Alongside generation, we need to think about efficiency, and we need to think about our existing building stock. A key point of weakness in the thermal efficiency of any building will be their windows (especially so in a solid masonry building with leaky, single glazed, sash windows). I tried to think about all the things I could do to improve the efficiency in and around my window at home.

Double glazing the panes considerably improves their all important U-Value. Integrating brush strips and seals into the sashes improves air tightness around this traditional unit. Incorporating solid timber shutters that close at night creates an insulating pocket of air between the window and the building interior- keeping it warmer. 

As is fairly typical, my radiator sits beneath my window. Mounting the unit on an insulated board improves the thermal efficiency in this localised area- improving the dissipation of heat into the rest of the room (and not just into that bit of wall behind!). Finally, increasing the size of the radiator itself, and reducing the temperature of the hot water (the Delta) being fed into it, improves the efficiency of the boiler whilst maintaining the "BTU" value required (these last bits took some Googling!). 

Of course with historic buildings, there are limitations and sensitivities- as there should be- and there are myriad more sensitive ways to achieve similar results. The main thing is that all buildings will need to do their bit, and now feels like the time. 

Ferg.  

Refurbishment and extension approved in Bath

Connolly Wellingham Architects have received Planning Permission for works to a 19thC quarryman’s cottage in the Bath conservation area. The proposals include a timber framed extension on the rear elevation, opening the living spaces to the generous garden, and a companion structure at the opposite end of the lawn providing home-office studio space to support flexible 21st century living.

Higher Planes

A recent discussion in the studio saw us debating our all time favourite adaptive reuse projects, and I thought the results would make for an interesting set of journal articles – as well as a good chance to keep our minds moving during these bizarre times of industry-wide inactivity. There are many buildings I have visited over the years that could lay claim to the top spot, but I wanted to kick the series off by sharing some photos and drawings of the Basilica di Santa Maria delgi Angeli e dei Martiri.

To start the story properly we must begin with the construction of the Great Baths of Diocletian, between 298 and 306 AD at the top of Rome’s Viminal Hill. The site was the largest and most ambitious thermal baths in the Roman world when it was built; a sprawling complex of domes and vaults housing hot pools, cold pools, gymnasia, civic meeting spaces and gardens arranged around a vast central frigidarium. As well as playing a key function in the health and hygiene of the populace, it was the heart of community life. The baths fell into disuse when the aqueduct that fed its water supply was destroyed during a sack of the city in the 5th Century. For the next thousand years the baths stood as an increasingly precarious ruin, as generations of Romans mined the structure for valuable construction materials.

Legend has it that the idea to convert the ruin into a church came to a Monk named Loreto Antonio Lo Duca following a vision received in 1541, when he saw a bright shining light emitting from the central hall of the crumbling edifice. It took another twenty years (and the succession of two new Popes), before designs were completed and works began. Michelangelo Buonarotti was appointed to oversee the design by Pope Pius IV, key to which was creating an appropriately dignified architectural setting for Pius’ own tomb. By this time Michelangelo was well into his late eighties, and consumed with his work at Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Much of the interior today is the result of Luigi Vanvitelli’s baroque overhaul in the 1750s (including a decorative marble floor with an inlaid sundial illuminated by light streaming through a small hole in the roof), so it is difficult to know how sparse or elaborate Michelangelo’s scheme was. We do know that the arrangement of liturgical spaces in amongst the ruined baths remains largely true to his 16thC designs; a Greek Cross of four equal transepts, centred on the remains of the vast frigidarium.

Aside from uniting one of Rome’s most typologically symbolic relics with one of the Renaissance’s most brilliant architectural designers, for me the church is more than the sum of its (extraordinary) parts. It exemplifies well the way apparent limitations of an existing structure can seed innovative solutions and surprising variations to well established archetypes (see my earlier blog on this subject here). In this instance, the existing proportions of the baths’ central hall created a transverse nave, significantly wider than its depth, resulting in a remarkable expanse of space beyond the proportionally constrained domed ante-chamber, and giving the chapels at each end a much more dramatic perspective. Heightening this sense of discovery is the omission of any ornament or ceremony to the façade (a subsequent change); instead the nave is entered through the craggy apsidal remnants of the former caldarium, creating an austere contrast to the scale of space and sumptuousness of decoration within.

Over a century after Alberti began the analysis and celebration of surviving Roman architectural relics, one can see how the glorification of classical ruins may have evolved into a reverence bordering on spiritual. Capitalising on the authentic purity' of the ancient baths to create a sacred space of divine worship remains in my view a masterpiece of ‘creative reuse’.

Charlie

images from the wonderful online archive at www.santamariadegliangeliroma.it

Finding the Everyday

Like many of us right now I’m finding solace in daily exercise, taking the form of a run if I have the energy and a walk if I don’t. Whilst on a recent jaunt around my particular patch of south Bristol, I stumbled across this strangely evocative scene. The half demolished/half built garden brought to mind a painting by Danish artist Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.

The piece titled A Courtyard in Rome (1813) depicts - as the name would suggest - a courtyard, bathed in sun, surrounded by rustic buildings and a terrace defined by plant pots. In the essay, ‘A Real Living Contact with the Things Themselves’ Irénée Scalbert uses the painting to mark a moment during which scholars engaged in The Grand Tour moved their attention away from the picturesque landscapes and classical language that had interested the previous Romantic generation. Instead, they turned their gaze towards what surrounded them, the ordinary, the everyday. In this case, that meant recording the lives and spaces of peasant Italy, away from the well-trodden paths of baroque Rome and Tivoli, towards the communities and rural landscapes of Capri and Naples. What they found in the ordinary was no less picturesque. Through a concentration on the things that surrounded them, artists, writers and poets discovered the extraordinary and a certain beauty.

This brings me back to that piece of smashed-up yard in Bristol. Perhaps beauty is a bit strong, however as the world feels like it’s on pause, moments like these that make me pause on my walk, feel evermore worthwhile.

Joe

Listed Building Consent granted in Wiltshire

It has been a busy week for our farmhouse refurbishment project in Wiltshire; Listed Building Consent has been formally granted and the contractor has begun investigative opening-up works of the existing structure. We are trying to learn as much as we can about the different phases of the house’s history as we progress detail design, before commencing construction works this summer.

Site Progress in Cotswolds

We have enjoyed following the construction progress of the new events hall at Owlpen Manor on the Estate’s official Instagram account – www.instagram.com/owlpenmanor.

The larch for the frame was carefully selected from various locations around the Estate’s woodland to minimise the ecological impact of the felling, before being seasoned and fabricated by Tom and his team at Round Wood Design back here in Bristol.

The completed hall will overlook the Tudor gardens to the south, sitting as a contemporary friend to the 15thC Tithe Barn. All images copyright of the Owlpen Estate.

Pre-Contract Meeting in Hampshire

Construction information has been approved by the PCC at Holy Trinity Colden Common this week, with the contract signed and ready to commence after Easter. A group of volunteers from the congregation have done a great job clearing the west end of furniture and finishes, ready to receive their new kitchenette and WC.

The new facilities will improve the congregation’s ability to host events in the nave throughout the week, maximising the community’s access to this significant listed building.

Tiverton Town Hall

Connolly Wellingham Architects have been appointed to survey condition and advise on remedial works to the roof at Tiverton’s Grade II listed Town Hall. The Victorian renaissance building was completed in 1863 by Bristol architect H.Lloyd, and demonstrates the civic ambition of the town during its most prosperous industrial years.

Listed Building Consent was submitted in December 2019 with works expected to progress in 2020.

The Long Gallery

In 2019 Connolly Wellingham submitted proposals to an open-call ideas competition for a new cultural heritage centre on a prominent site in Pembroke, southwest Wales. The brief aims to catalyse the regeneration of the town’s Quays through the introduction of a mixed-use Henry Tudor Heritage Centre and Library, on a back-yard plot adjacent to the Norman Castle and overlooking the Pembroke River.

The steeply sloping site connects the river-side Quays to the north, across a ten-metre level change, up to the High Street to the south, and spans three historically distinct medieval burgage plots. Aside from an adjacency to Henry VII’s birthplace, the site is rich in accrued narrative history, with physical ties to the Norman castle, the medieval urban grid, the Georgian shop-fronts, the industrial Quayside, and archaeological remains of the 19thC water mill.

Connolly Wellingham’s proposal seeks to connect all elements of the site’s complex level changes with a single cascading circulation block, that we refer to as ‘the long gallery’; relieving the pressure on the existing listed buildings and unlocking full access to the heritage assets for the first time. This block forms the ‘connective tissue’ that unites the Henry Tudor heritage centre in the refurbished listed buildings at street level, with the Library and Archive overlooking the quiet central courtyard, and on down to the wide open public realm of the riverside.

The largest part of the site is carved out to make space for a double height ‘Tudor Hall’, housing café, temporary exhibition and events spaces, and enjoying direct access out to the Castle gardens to the west. The hall is crowned with a clerestory lantern, marrying traditional timber carpentry techniques with contemporary structural truss design, and playfully twisting the visual language of the gabled Tudor façade. 

RetroFirst

The Architects Journal has announced the launch of a campaign this week to lobby for the prioritisation of architectural retrofit over and above the more carbon intensive process of demolition and new build - as a means to further the objectives of the wider ‘Architects Declare’ movement to improve the carbon consumption of the construction industry. We have been highly enthused to read this week’s announcements and wholeheartedly endorse the ‘Retrofirst’ campaign ambitions; many of which have been formative in our own decision to found a studio with a focused expertise in creative reuse, refurbishment, conservation and the capitalisation upon the potential of existing fabric.

The responsibility of the construction industry for significant portions of the UK’s carbon emissions and resource consumption is widely acknowledged, as has the potential role of retrofit in meeting the country’s carbon reduction commitments (further reading: www.ukgbc.org/climate-change).  VAT tax exemption for new build contracts were introduced as part of a policy designed to reboot the construction industry following the 2008 financial crash, and to turbo-charge housebuilding to meet the UK’s targets for countering the on-going housing crisis. A negative side-effect of these well-meaning but short-sighted policies is the financial penalisation of retrofit schemes; which secure construction jobs and create homes just as readily, but through significantly more sparing low-energy means.

The AJ campaign is calling on Government to 1) reverse the VAT incentives to make retrofit the more economical first choice for developers, 2) to tailor National Planning Policy to prioritise schemes that upgrade and reuse existing stock, and 3) to steer the course of considerable public procurement toward retrofit solutions across the country.

Our philosophy at CWa has always been to reuse first, and we are proud to say that all of the projects currently on our books deal with sensitive refurbishment and the reuse or expansion of existing fabric. For us the benefits of reuse are as much about cultural legacy as they are about conservation of resources. We believe that the most enjoyable parts of our cities are those which have evolved through the accretion of countless phases of frugal adaptation, slowly acquiring a richness and authenticity that is impossible to replicate in the most diligently designed new building. Approaching our design practice from this starting point, we see work with existing fabric (of any age or quality) as the best way to preserve, improve and pass-on a meaningful ‘sense of place’.

c. Stanton Williams
https://www.stantonwilliams.com/projects/ual-campus-for-central-saint-martins-at-kings-cross/

c. Featherstone Young
http://featherstoneyoung.com/project/ty-pawb-arts-market-community-centre-wrexham-wales-refurbishment

Sadly much of the fabric constructed in our cities in the last 50 years is seldom given the chance to establish itself as part of that cultural identity, before it is razed to the ground and replaced by new higher density development - that is often only of very marginally improved appearance or utility. These existing buildings, although usually unloved by todays trends and tastes, have no hope for acquiring an aged legitimacy without the wear of good use, the care of regular upkeep, and frankly the time to grow old. Successful precedents abound of schemes that upgrade problematic mid-20th century buildings by slashing their energy consumption and improving their appearance both internally for users and residents and outwardly to the wider urban realm.

The need to densify our existing city centres is often cited as the insurmountable challenge of retrofit, and the carte-blanche upon which the UK’s recent tower building boom has been delivered. But again interesting projects are already unlocking the latent potential of our built environment, focusing on a slower paced and more evenly spread gradual increase in density - by developing in, on and around our existing building stock, rather than relying on the ‘silver bullet’ of single sites of conspicuous high-rise.

WeCanMake – establishing models for citizen-led housing development on micro-sites too small to interest more traditional market-led developers. https://wecanmake.org/

Skyroom – recently published a white paper exploring the provision of homes on London’s disused rooftops. https://riseup.skyroom.london/

CWa support for this movement is twofold; we believe in the ethical responsibility of the construction industry to safeguard our existing resources, and we believe in the culturally enriching capacity of reuse to strengthen the authenticity of our towns and cities – no matter what the building. We would be very interested to collaborate with any building owners who would like to improve the environmental performance of their assets, whilst investigating opportunities for delivering increased density and the introduction of new complementary uses.

Charlie