100 REUSE & RETROFIT


now climate crisis conversations ramping up the pressure to do the right thing. While the schemes that make the headlines often incorporate historic structures, retrofit first is increasingly the chosen option when the buildings are of indifferent aesthetic quality, but still robust. Feilden Clegg Bradley (FCB) has demonstrated beautifully what can be achieved when a handsome, historic building is thoughtfully refurbished, and made fit for 21st-century audiences with just a few strategic interventions. I raved about its new Brighton Dome project in my FX Brief


Feilden Clegg Bradley has demonstrated beautifully what can be achieved when a handsome, historic building is refurbished thoughtfully


Encounters column for March 2024, and an earlier scheme for Alexandra Palace in north London has won a multitude of awards and admirers. But these buildings had glamour and cultural kudos to start with. Shrewsbury Flaxmill (see case study, below) shows what can be achieved in a more practical, yet still landmark industrial building with the right care and craftsmanship. However, retrofit as a default now means that even the lowliest of teaching or office spaces is worthy of another few decades’ occupation with the right approach. FCB partner Joe Jack Williams says: ‘Te Flaxmill was always going to be saved. It’s


CASE STUDY SHREWSBURY FLAXMILL


The world’s first iron-framed building, Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, has been reinvented as a leisure destination, museum and adaptable workspace after a £28m restoration programme, funded by Historic England, which bought the structure in 2005, rescuing it from decades of dereliction. Built between 1796–1797, the site consisted of eight Grade I listed buildings, four of which have been brought back to life.


For almost 100 years it operated as a steam-powered flax mill, its innovative iron frame designed to minimise fire risk, paving the way for subsequent skyscraper design. The cast iron frame had cracked due to settlement, and as its Grade I listing meant it could not be replaced, a solution was found through reinforcing the surrounding masonry, and adding a hidden steel grillage and six new columns at ground floor. An environmental audit underpinned a ‘whole building approach’ to sustainability, with vertical circulation chosen as the least invasive method of bringing all five floors into use. Natural light and


ventilation have been reintroduced through reopening 110 former windows. The new metal windows feature high-performance glazing. Woodfibre insulation improves the thermal eficiency of the original masonry walls, combined with sections of exposed masonry for cooling. A ground source heat pump has been introduced.


The ground floor now features public café and exhibition space, which tells the story of the mill’s role in the Industrial Revolution as well as architectural history. Above it are four floors of flexible ofice space, with meeting spaces inside the striking, pyramid-shaped kiln, which also acts as the new entrance.


Client Historic England


Architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios Gross internal area 5,596m2 Cost £28m Completed September 2022 Landscape architect LT Studio Acoustics Ion Acoustics


All images The timber structure of intersecting geometric shapes creates an interesting contrast between light and shade throughout the day


ALL IMAGES: DANIEL HOPKINSON


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