Future Cities Forum's 'Retrofit and renewal' discussions report part one

Image: Canon Treasurer the Rev. Kenneth Padley discussing Salisbury Cathedral's 2030 plan for net zero, with forum founder Heather Fearfield facilitating. Tower Hamlets Council, Pilbrow & Partners, the City of London Corporation, BDP, Sheppard Robson, British Land and Buro Happold also joined the conversation (Salisbury Cathedral's cloisters and chapter house are pictured on screen).

Future Cities Forum is releasing the first part of its 'Retrofit and renewal' discussion report. The debate took place at the new offices of Buro Happold at the Featherstone Building in the City of London.

The forum discussion was held following COP 29 and the UK government's commitment on the need to retrofit housing stock to cut carbon emissions. Throughout the country, local authorities are having to set de-carbonisation targets on limited budgets. Climate concerns also affect university buildings, office and retail developments.

Contributors to the first part of the debate included Buro Happold, the City of London Corporation and Tower Hamlets Council.

The discussion began with Buro Happold's Director in the firm's sustainability team, Nancy Wood, describing the standards that are being set for sustainable buildings in the City of London:

'At Buro Happold there are many different levels of discussion going on in and around our projects. One area is policy and we have been setting the standards for the City of London's SPD, ensuring high standards are embedded into all building projects. Our approach is 'retrofit first' but we also advise on low carbon approaches and at organisational level, for example for firms like Aviva, helping to set their sustainability standards.

'One of the projects that we are currently working on in terms of retrofit and sustainability, is the Barbican arts centre, where we are providing bespoke attention, across the site and in particular spaces. It is extremely difficult to ensure the same standards across all projects because all buildings are individual, so have to be customised. The Conservatory at the Barbican for example has different priorities, compared to other spaces. There are heritage constraints and different uses that make the approach particular to each area, but at the heart are the people who use the building. Climate resilience underpins all the varying approaches.

Above: Barbican Centre terrace photographed in July 2024

Buro Happold comments:

'The project will preserve and celebrate the iconic building’s original architectural vision, while attracting new and diverse audiences, providing new opportunities for the Barbican’s diverse community of partners, artists and audiences, and boosting the building’s accessibility and environmental performance.

'The major renewal of the Barbican Centre is planned to take place in phases across the next decade. A multidisciplinary team of experts from Buro Happold is playing a key role across this large scale, integrated and collaborative regeneration project.

'Designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon and built between 1965 and 1982, the Barbican was part of a visionary plan to radically transform how we experience the urban landscape resulting in a unique mixed-use development with residential, recreational and cultural facilities, alongside a lake and landscaping, a conservatory, and high-rise housing all together on a 14-hectare site in the City of London.

'Each year, more than a million people attend Barbican events performed by hundreds of artists from across the globe.

The Renewal Programme aims to help meet the City Corporation’s climate targets and restore the Barbican’s original architectural vision. Buro Happold has been engaged to provide broad multidisciplinary consultancy across everything from building services engineering (MEP) and structural engineering to sustainability and people movement digital modelling.'

Above: Nancy Wood, Director in Buro Happold's sustainability team

Nancy continued:

'We have also been working at the new London College of Fashion in Stratford, and this is a building which is designed to be robust and have a long life. The London Legacy Development Corporation had over-arching targets for the sustainability of it as well as those set by UAL for carbon. These were targets set around embodied carbon long before anyone was thinking about it and now we are looking at the data from first occupancy assessments. As with fast fashion which is not sustainable, so too is the consideration that this building will have a long life and it is designed for the future. There are measures in there that influence consumption, so that if someone opens a window the air con cuts out.'

Buro Happold states further:

'To realise ten storeys of dense accommodation over a mainly open-plan ground floor layout, our structural engineers introduced post-tensioned transfer beams of a scale normally seen in civil infrastructure projects to ensure the loads were safely supported. Wherever possible, we pursued a prefabricated approach which ensured the quality of the exposed concrete finish while minimising risk on site.

'Our building services, sustainability and building physics teams worked intensively with both LLDC and each end user to fully understand the use of every space over typical days and semesters. We were then able to perform accurate energy modelling to achieve the ideal arrangement of services provision to promote workflow and creativity across the varied range of practical workshops.

'This work also enabled us to optimise the building massing, orientation and placement of perimeter windows to allow maximum passive ventilation measures and plentiful access to daylight.

'Using extensive 3D ray-tracing modelling, our acoustics engineers were able to unlock the potential of the Heart to support open plan teaching and learning, creating a collaborative environment that extends through to the surrounding workshops.

We demonstrated to both LLDC, the leadership of UAL’s London College of Fashion and the end user teams that a little background noise was beneficial, while also introducing sound-absorbing material where needed to ensure speech between teachers and their clusters was intelligible without ever becoming prominent or distracting.

'Designed to be accessible and sustainable from the outset, and equipped with the flexibility to ensure future resilience, the new campus has achieved BREEAM Outstanding certification. Through extensive modelling and analysis, we have delivered engineering strategies that will achieve a 39% reduction in CO2 emissions against the original brief, while also achieving a 19% reduction in embodied carbon over a 60-year lifecycle.'

Image below: The new London College of Fashion, East Bank, courtesy of Allies and Morrison

During the debate, Shravan Joshi, Chair of the Planning and Transportation Committee at the City of London Corporation, described the tension of safe-guarding heritage and allowing for the 'march of the new':

'There is a friction point around the maintenance of the City's heritage, the fabric of the stone, against the desire to build new driven by economic growth, which is represented by glass and steel. I enjoy the tension because I think it adds to the unique character of the place and I do not think we want to slow down development, but maintain its organic growth.

'We have our 'Heritage Toolkit' to help maintain the older buildings. However, they have to be functional and we are overlaying our standards of sustainability to them. They weren't built for it. So the important question is how can we be compliant, maintain the beauty of those buildings sympathetically.

Above: the Barbican Centre wrapped in fabric (by Buro Happold) for the Purple Hibiscus project, with City University graduation celebrations

Shravan continued:

'The Barbican is a grade listed environment and people love it or hate it, but it has to be functional. Taking the Conservatory - this has to be an inclusive space, so we must put in a lift, but that is virtually impossible in any listed building anywhere. So we need to create an environment were we can do it and perhaps over-ride some heritage concerns.

'It is the same with Smithfield Market. We must maintain the character, but also enjoy where it goes to. We must have the past with the present. At the new Museum of London, in historic Smithfield, there will be a family-friendly cafe with a window where people can watch the tube trains go by. In the 1980s our buildings were fortresses and we wanted to feel safe and secure, but we have now overcome those challenges, so we must design into policy the direction of making buildings more permeable. Some developers ask us about the rates for rooftop and other spaces, but I tell them they are inclusive places. We are giving away our prime areas for the very reason that we are welcoming different demographics into the city, which must be open more widely to young and old.'

Above: Shravan Joshi of the City of London Corporation talking during the retrofit discussion, with (from left) Lynn Summerfield of British Land, Nancy Wood of Buro Happold, Gareth Gwynne of LB Tower Hamlets, Christopher Burton of BDP and Heather Fearfield of Future Cities Forum. The Barbican Centre wrapped for 'Purple Hibiscus' project is on screen.

The City of London Corporation’s Court of Common Council on the 26 November ratified a decision to end its interest in co-locating the wholesale food markets of Smithfield and Billingsgate to a new site at Dagenham Dock. Under a new agreement with market traders, financial support will be provided to help them relocate to new premises, ensuring their continued success. The City Corporation says it is actively supporting Traders to identify suitable new sites to ensure that they can continue their essential role in London’s food supply chain and is in close dialogue with them and other wholesale markets about this already. Traders will continue their operations at Smithfield and Billingsgate until at least 2028, ensuring a gradual transition period with ample time for planning and collaboration on next steps.

The decision reflects a careful balance between respecting the history of Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets and managing resources for this project responsibly. Project costs have risen due to a number of external factors, including inflation and the increasing cost of construction which have made the move unaffordable. In light of this, the City of London Corporation and Traders together looked at options earlier this year that can similarly meet their long-term business needs.

New Spitalfields Market, which has a longer operational life and modern infrastructure, remains unaffected by this decision and will continue to serve as a key hub for wholesale fruit and veg produce in London. Existing plans to create the new London Museum (formerly Museum of London) at West Smithfield also remain well underway and will not be impacted by this decision.  

Image below: Tower Hamlets retrofitting and new build around the old Royal London Hospital, to create a new civic space and offices (courtesy Bouygues UK)

Tower Hamlets Council has been involved in an award-winning retrofit project, using an all-female team, to bring the old Royal London Hospital building in Whitechapel back into community use as the new Town Hall. Opened in 1757, the grade II listed building was once a bustling facility where generations of east Londoners were born and cared for.

Despite being one of London’s most important structures it has been closed since 2014 and was falling into disrepair.

The council saved the building by transforming it into the borough’s new town hall to serve the public once again.The entire ground floor will be dedicated for public use in an accessible place which is a stark contrast to the council’s former civic centre which was in a rented premises in East India Dock.

Gareth Gwynne, Senior Planning Officer (West) for Tower Hamlets Council spoke about the fine balance that must be kept in the borough to safeguard heritage but open up opportunities for science:

'Place-making, heritage and growth are all at forefront of schemes that come before the council. We are bringing in new development such as the life sciences hub but at the same time we must guard our heritage. The borough must not sit in aspic but it is challenging. It is vital that any new development gives back to the community. The new life science hub will provide jobs locally but there has to be more porosity, so that students living in the area can get interested in science training and careers. The 'green spine' that we are developing as part of our nature wayfinding, is part of our 'lapside to bedside' and it critical to our need to improve health.

'There are always robust discussions between developers, architects and the council, because of the scale of ambition. Market demands mean that buildings are 'dressed well' but we want 'dressed better'. Then there is the physical context that these buildings sit in and considerations of urban design. There are always different opinions and a lot comes down to the scale of the development.

'On the UK government's housing targets, we have to look at the retrofit of homes for climate emergency. The bulk of our housing is old stock but we do need to do new housing. It shouldn't be just a numbers thing but the government has to step in to provide grants for occupiers and housing associations, including funding for local authorities if energy performance is tackled well. At Tower Hamlets we have secured £37 million pounds for carbon offsets and we need to look at the cheapest solutions first such as insulation to stop homes being leaky, and then more sophisticated measures.

'Labour's ambition on housing is right, but whether we have the levers to do it is another matter. On heritage, I don't think there is a huge tension. We would resist anything other than single glazing, but there are now new products coming to the market which are positive. Historic England is becoming more sympathetic to the climate emergency, but at the same time is not going to walk away from its heritage responsibilities.'

Above: Tower Hamlets Town Hall in the remodelled Royal London Hospital building , viewed from Whitechapel station, with vista to City of London

Previously at Future Cities Forum held in the Council Chamber last November, Gareth, commented on some of the negative reaction of the building of the new Royal London Hospital and how when Canary Wharf was built it did not reflect on the demographics of those living there:

'We must have good public realm and safe guard our heritage aspects. There is the Church of St Philp to the rear of our new Council building and adjacent to one of the new life science district plots for instance. We must work sensitively when introducing new buildings. It is challenging and part of continuous dialogue. There have been some criticisms of the new Royal London Hospital, but people also know the public benefit of it. There was a different planning consensus when it was built and the ideas of good public realm planning wasn't there, so we don't want to repeat that. We want large developments in the future but done in a sensitive way.

'Post pandemic I think everyone is a lot more aware of the development of life sciences. At the Council I am most concerned about managing growth and changing benefits. We want to bring wealth, homes, offices and employment to the borough and the benefits should be shared with those most in need in the community. When Canary Wharf was built it didn't reflect the demographic area, but these days we have a responsibility to make sure benefits are shared for health and for young peoples' careers. We must make sure that obligations attached to consents are locked in and that good public realm is provided. We need to make sure that where we live and work is better, that good comes from new labs for science and for local people.'

Part two of our 'Retrofit and renewal' report will be published shortly.

Below: Barts Life Sciences, Whitechapel (courtesy Barts / QMUL)