黑洞社区

Architect HLM is planning to more than double the amount of refurbishment work it carries out in the coming years amid a booming market for energy-saving retrofit projects.

The practice is expecting retrofit jobs, which currently account for around 15% of its work, to 鈥渞ise quite rapidly鈥� to at least 35% as clients increasingly opt for refurbishments of existing buildings ahead of new builds.

HLM鈥檚 head of design Philip Watson told 黑洞社区 that the types of projects up for grabs in recent months have made it 鈥減retty clear鈥� that retrofit work is becoming more prevalent, particularly among clients managing large estates such as those in higher education.

He added: 鈥淯niversities are gearing up to make their estates more covid proof, they鈥檙e trying to address the net zero carbon agenda and I think there鈥檒l be far fewer brand new big, blingy buildings with a 拢70m price tag.鈥�

He said the major driver behind the trend was a growing awareness of climate change. 鈥淚 think the climate emergency issue has come to the forefront of people鈥檚 minds and they realise that just knocking down a building and replacing it with something big and blingy to attract students isn鈥檛 the most sustainable way to develop your campus.

鈥淎nd universities have all set targets for themselves around carbon and reducing carbon so that鈥檚 in people鈥檚 minds.鈥�

Emma Keyse, higher education business development manager at Morgan Sindall-owned fit-out firm Overbury and trustee of the Higher Education Design Quality Forum, said universities are coming under 鈥渋ncreasing pressure鈥� from students to improve their sustainability credentials.

> British Land on retrofitting: Lessons on net zero offices from 100 Liverpool Street

She added that tightening purse strings were also a factor: 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of uncertainty around funding in the sector and it鈥檚 often far more cost effective to re-use existing buildings, than demolishing and reconstructing.鈥�

London School of Economics director of estates Julian Robinson said the financial impacts of the covid-19 pandemic meant there was a 鈥渄esire to make better use of what you鈥檝e got, especially with advent of new ways of working and most importantly the carbon reduction agenda鈥�.

Uncertainty over whether overseas students, a major revenue generator for universities, would return in the coming years in the same numbers that they did before the pandemic and Brexit is also adding to the changes.

Watson said the mix of factors have 鈥済iven people a little bit of time to take stock and be a bit wiser about their existing estate鈥�.

Swathes of empty retail units in town and city centres look set to be repurposed into different uses with HLM working on schemes which involve turning shops into events and office space.

And earlier this week AHMM launched a consultation on plans to refurbish Debenhams鈥� Oxford Street department store.

The proposals would see new cladding installed on the existing building and three upper storeys added to house office space at the collapsed retailer鈥檚 flagship.