A cycle of intelligent retrofit and remodelling of existing homes could make major inroads into the UK's housing crisis, creating a valuable web of expertise without displacing communities, argue Anders Strand Luhr and Erika Suzuki
At Office Ten Architecture, we’ve worked on many retrofit projects for private clients over the years and, despite best intentions, sustainable features are the first thing out of the window when the tenders come in.
After a while we thought: OK, what can we do about this situtation? Everybody knows what is needed, the technology exists. We could sit and wait for prices to fall or grants to rise, or we could instigate change.
Extending and splitting Victorian terraces generates profit: it’s a proven model. So why can’t we put that uplift towards creating sustainable homes that reflect life today, addressing the crises in our housing and communities?
A standard split puts a big flat suitable for families on the first floor and loft, without garden access. Add a second stair, and it can occupy the ground and part of the first floor instead, with a smaller flat upstairs, complete with terrace.
Good design is sustainable because people stay, and these conversions can be done on an ongoing basis without displacing communities. And the approach extends to infrastructure: if you share a commodity, it becomes cheaper and more efficient. Running ground-source heat pumps across back gardens would make the technology financially viable, providing cheaper energy and helping to tackle fuel poverty.
An ongoing retrofit process could create a web of people, resources and expertise to tackle every UK home, learning from mistakes and developing knowledge via repetition
We found one sustainable development model in the Ise Shrine, Japan, which is rebuilt in a perpetual 20-year cycle that sustains a web of people, resources and expertise. An ongoing retrofit process could create a similar web to tackle every UK home, learning from mistakes and developing knowledge via repetition, rather than design teams and contractors going their separate ways after each project ends.
We know this needs to be done at scale to have impact, and we’re finding partners for the Greenest House through the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products. It involves a lot of cold-calling, but these firms are passionate about change. Like the Norwegian culture of dugnad, everyone contributes expertise and knowledge, and everyone benefits, in part through access to markets.
Next goals include further work on renders, servicing solutions and environmental data. But we’re also prioritising a sustainable model to keep profit within the system, whether via councils, ethical investors, or even saying to our partners, ‘OK, let’s do this thing, together’ – because wouldn’t it be great if all development could be like this?
Anders Strand Luhr and Erika Suzuki are founders of Office Ten Architecture, educators at the Architectural Association and University of Greenwich, and creators of the Greenest House movement.