38
PROJECT REPORT: HERITAGE & HISTORIC
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
Exposed elements of the iron frame enhance and edu- cate museum visitors; facing page: generous breakout spaces in the FCBStudios fitted-out workplace floor
“encouraged them to do research and innovation projects, looking at thermal enhancement of solid masonry, which is a really thorny issue in environmental upgrades.” The risk was over-insulating and thereby introducing other problems such as moisture into the fabric.
© Historic England
Historic England was nervous about potential outcomes of interventions, so with time not being a critical factor, and having a client with a rigorous technical team, FCBStudios suggested doing a trial run on product solutions for the refurbishment. This included sending materials for third party testing, setting up a weather monitoring station on site, and testing different insulation materials onsite, using probes mounted in the walls. These data were then analysed using FCBStudios’ modelling software, and the design and specification adjusted as needed, before presenting the findings to clients and other organisations such as academic bodies. “We had a client that was interested in the real answers to these questions, not just getting what was required for Regs approval, and they were interested in learning lessons and disseminating them.” Historic England invested in a training
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
programme for various strands of the industry, as well as apprentices in the heritage field, seeing this 10-year project as a crucial test bed for knowledge sharing on refurbishing major old buildings. The client for its part opened a visitor’s centre, and held open days when the public could visit and learn about some of the refurbishment skills being employed, such as lime mortar.
Rescue mission Being the world’s oldest iron framed building – designed before building codes and full understanding of iron’s elasticity – most structural elements were understandably in a poor state. Cast iron performs well under compression but not under tension, and the weak points emerged over time, with significant cracks appearing where the columns meet the floors above, replicated across the whole frame. “The first engineer we spoke to said ‘you have to take it all down and rebuild it,’” Greensmith recalls, “but we said ‘nobody wants the world’s newest cast-iron framed building.’” With the first floor being a generous
floor-to-ceiling height, the architects were able to hide a lot of the structural strengthening members they introduced,
ADF FEBRUARY 2024
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
