10 RUTH TALKS John O’Brien profile By Ruth Slavid
THE CONVERSION OF A VICTORIAN STABLE BLOCK INTO A SERIES OF INNOVATIVE HOMES SOUNDS EXACTLY THE SORT OF CUTESY DEVELOPMENT THAT MAY BE CHALLENGING, ENJOYABLE AND CHARMING, BUT HAS LITTLE INFLUENCE ON THE ISSUES THAT AFFECT US TODAY. BUT IN THE CASE OF THE STABLE BLOCK AT THE BRE’S HEADQUARTERS AT GARSTON NEAR WATFORD, THIS ASSUMPTION COULD NOT BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.
It is the spearhead of a programme to find a solution to one of construction’s most intractable problems – if we are going to have a housing stock that is sustainable and suited to the needs of the later part of the 21st century, it is going to have to come through improvements to our existing housing stock and not just through new building.
H
ousing refurbishment is very much the province of ‘white van man’ and no developments, however ingenious, will succeed unless they can be communicated and carried out by those independent traders, many poorly skilled and often with little access to the latest information. How gratifying then that one of the key people involved in the BRE’s project actually has experience of working as a white van man.
Trained as a building surveyor, John O’Brien worked for contractor Costain until 1993 when the last recession hit and work ran out. It was then that he set up as a self-employed builder. ‘It gave me a hands-on approach,’ he explained, adding ‘We need to come up with techniques that can be carried right down to the workplace.’
These are techniques that will be honed, not only on the BRE’s Victorian building, but also on a variety of projects around the country, under the banner of ‘Rethinking Housing Refurbishment’. Local authorities and housing associations have put forward buildings varying in form and dating from Victorian times up to the 1970s. The idea is that techniques are tested and monitored – monitoring of most of the properties will take place this winter, although the stable block itself will not be ready until spring 2010. It is this detailed feedback that distinguishes the work from other one-off exemplar projects.
‘Landlords want to get it right,’ says O’Brien. ‘They don’t want to go down a route that will be expensive and ineffective.’ This is why, although BRE is willing to look at products that are innovative alongside the tried and tested, they have to be from manufacturers geared up to work on an industrial scale.
A wide range of buildings form part of the study, including this terraced house in east Lancashire
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