Whole Life Carbon and Adaptive Reuse

WHOLE LIFE CARBON AND ADAPTIVE REUSE

Free to attend

Seminar space
The Building Centre, London

Reusing and retrofitting existing buildings offers a clear and sustainable alternative to demolishing and rebuilding, yet the UK demolishes 500,000 buildings every year. This session reviews current policies and barriers to change and looks at strategies for quantifying and communicating the whole-life carbon benefits of adaptive reuse and encouraging developers and clients to understand, improve and capitalise on the latent environmental, heritage, economic and social value of their existing assets.

Chaired by Kiru Balson of Max Fordham, presentations include:

• Conservation expert and finance specialist Esther Robinson Wild, co-founder of Robinson Wild and Vestiga Capital Partners on the potential for intelligent investment in the sustainable reuse of historic buildings to create opportunities for economic and social returns.

• Studio PDP partner Luke Richardson-Brown on the practice’s work on the Grade II-listed Art Deco Shell Mex building located between The Savoy Hotel and the Adelphi building on the Strand in central London.

• Kiru Balson, principal sustainability consultant at Max Fordham on the challenge of encouraging clients to consider adaptive reuse rather than demolition or new-build.

• Alexander Grigull, associate principal at Grimshaw, on the practice’s design and subsequent adaption of the Herman Miller Factory in Bath, completed by the Farrell/Grimshaw Partnership in 1976 and given a new lease of life as Bath Schools of Art and Design in 2019.

• Ian Poole, innovation lead and environmental steward at engineering firm Elliott Wood on Westminster City Council’s retrofit first policy, widely held to be the most advanced of its kind. Ian will discuss the challenges and tensions within the policy and outline the way regenerative thinking needs to be applied across a broader policy landscape in contexts beyond Westminster.

In partnership with: