The vast majority of us now accept that single use plastics are a bad thing. Most people will take a reusable cup for their morning takeaway coffee. So how long will it take for national and local government to realise that, if we wish to pass on some legacy of the natural world to our children, then we cannot continue to think of buildings as single use.
I have said many times, but it bears repeating, that construction accounts for a staggering 43% of carbon emissions. For demolition and reconstruction there is the energy that went into creating the building, extracting the materials from the ground, producing the materials andtransporting the same. Demolish and rebuild you reverse the process producing mountains of waste, and then in the rebuilding go through the very same process again.
However you compute it, 43% is a staggering sum and the implications must not and cannot be ignored.
In 2019 Birmingham City Council declared a target of net zero by 2030. They now have only five years to achieve this. Without addressing the major contributor, construction, their Route to Zero Action Plan will certainly be derailed. You only have to look around to see that Birmingham City Council are ignoring all the climate warnings and bulldozing ahead with mass destruction of our built environment. Just look at what was Digbeth and the numerous cranes that loom over the area. You might be forgiven for thinking that they are being chivvied by powerful developers but we understand that even when developers are willing to think about repurposing the message is: “no, knock it down and build towers”, even suggesting that these proposed towers are too modest: “make them higher.”
In contrast, there are other local authorities and enlightened developers showing that there is another way. The Architects Journal Retrofit First conference this month showcased a series of case studies.
One such example involved the retrofitting of two 1960s brutalist towers in Croydon. Lunar and Apollo House are twenty and twenty-two storeys high. This is the UK’ s largest office to residential conversion providing 583 homes. The developers used the opportunity to proceed under permitted development rules which enabled them to kickstart the retrofit. Permitted development allows for certain prescribed developments to proceed more quickly through the planning process provided the external envelope of the building remains the same.
Croydon has similar building stock to Birmingham with much rebuilt in the post-war period. Like Birmingham they have large redundant office buildings from the 1960s but unlike Birmingham they are seeing a way to repurpose them. Permitted development rules is a process that Birmingham City Council and developers could use for our empty 1960s office blocks like the Ringway Centre. The Ringway Centre has languished undeveloped for the last nine years. It could by now be a flourishing and vibrant residential community bringing life and energy to the area, a true gateway to Chinatown and Southside, if not for the preoccupation of the council with tall towers.
Canary Wharf, that massive symbol of banking, capital and wealth, is also struggling with empty offices following the post covid exodus of workers from blocks built just twenty-five years ago. The massive HSBC building is an example of ambitious refurbishment. Plans include leisure, entertainment, education and cultural activities.
Tom Venner, Canary Wharf redevelopment officer, told the conference that reuse and retrofit were the industry’s future and that demolition “had to stop”. He considered that HSBC could be seen as the “poster child in London of repurposing”. Where are the West Midlands poster children? You might include the Typhoo Tea Factory, partially repurposed as the new BBC studios, and even the Wolverhampton Hospital building beautifully retrofitted as housing for over 55s. Both are great examples but do not meet the sweep, scale orambition that the plans for Lunar and Apollo House or HSBC demonstrate.
At the conference Mary Creagh, an environment minister, described the Government vision for achieving the circular economy as leaving behind the “take, make, throw“ model and instead making use of our heritage buildings. She also said she wanted to “retrofit the past and make it fit for the future”. Brave words. Government policy lags behind this rhetoric but it seems the mood music is changing backed up by the latest Government announcement of “The Pride in Place” programme in which tens of millions are to be invested in 330 overlooked communities. We can only hope that Birmingham will be included.
The Ringway Centre or 1 Lancaster Circus are both well positioned for repurposing as housing or, as with the HSBCbuilding in Carnary Wharf, cultural centres. However, from our conversations with local officers it seems unlikely that Birmingham City Council, mired in financial woes and selling the family silver, are likely to have a change of heart. We are instead pinning our hopes on a more enlightened administration at the West Midlands Combined Authority.
In the meantime, Mary Creagh’s encouraging words suggest that the arguments around carbon reduction and the need to create social and psychological security through a stable environment may be being acknowledged by national government.
As Owen Hatherley (writer and journalist) said “It is about time for the forever war on Birmingham’s Modernist buildings from its developers and politicians to end and about time for the city to find some pride again in its cityscape”.
By Brutiful Birmingham
Brutiful Birmingham is an organisation that maintains that the best buildings are the ones already standing, and retrofitting is always more eco-friendly than rebuilding.
Joy in Enough 