REUSE & RETROFIT 101
an internationally important building – the grandfather of the skyscraper – and it’s listed so we had to preserve it.
‘Whereas we’ve just finished a project for the University of Plymouth to extend and retrofit a 90s building on the campus (the Babbage Building, now a state-of-the-art teaching and research space for engineering and design). It doesn’t have that craft or heritage feel, but with retrofit you still have to apply the same principles, and in doing so we have saved thousands of tonnes of CO2.
‘At the other end of the scale we have just done a retrofit for BRE, which is mostly an
internal fit-out job. We did their HQ a while back. But with this building, there was a rigorous process of thinking through what can we keep, what has value. It’s just a tired 1960s office, but we thought, rather than replace it, can we just make it work harder? So, for example, we are turning carpet tiles into ceiling tiles. And luckily we found a lighting manufacturer that was happy to do repurpose the lighting, which is now all low-energy.’ Some iconic institutions have long been revealing outstanding new spaces within their old envelopes. Te V&A’s Kensington building is permanently evolving, thanks to its ambitious
FuturePlan development programme, Te latest area to be transformed for visitors is the second phase of the Photography Centre (see case study, below), making this the UK’s largest permanent space dedicated to photography. For commercial clients, reusing
buildings of character, and broadcasting the environmental benefits, is now not only helping to attract a certain kind of client or occupant but that message of sustainability is helping to build new communities. Developers Fabrix have been refurbishing and reprogramming buildings set within a 20th-century film studio in Berlin into a mixed, creative campus, with
CASE STUDY V&A PHOTOGRAPHY CENTRE
Way back, deep in the furthest, first-floor recesses of the V&A’s iconic Kensington building, in what was previously ofice and education space, sits the newly completed Photography Centre. Through tall, arched doorways lie five light, high-ceilinged and spacious rooms restored to the elegance and grandeur of the original architecture by conservation architects Purcell, while Gibson Thornley architects has translated these formerly mundane spaces into 21st-century exhibition and research facilities for photography fans.
The opening in May 2023 marked the completion of a project that began with David Kohn Architects’ 2018 refurb of the camera gallery, which tracks the evolution of this
remarkable invention from the 19th century onwards. But with four new gallery spaces and the reworking of a fifth, the Photography Centre becomes, at 570m2
, the UK’s biggest
permanent space dedicated to the art and craft of the camera.
Most striking of all is the new library for the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), its walls lined with walnut burr panels, overlaid with shelves stacked with wall-to-ceiling books, visually referencing the splendid, original National Art Library that sits at the centre of the V&A. Due to a weakness in the original floor, every one of these bookshelves – and the mezzanine walkway from which librarians access the upper shelves – has had to be cantilevered off the walls. But this structural solution facilitates a clear, column-free appreciation of the books themselves, the lower ones secured behind glass
screens. The horizontal and vertical rhythm of the shelves is augmented by elegant balustrades devised by Gibson Thornley, in tribute to the highly skilled metalworking visible in the V&A’s metal displays on the other side of the building. Clearly, it had to be a light, robust and attractive metal (unlike the cast iron gates and railings that hang in the metalwork gallery), so structural manganese brass was chosen, with rods clasped together by seperate connecting element to create a pleasing diagonal pattern. Says architect Matt Thornley: ‘We were interested in the making being visible rather than welding.’ A curving motif intersects the mid-point of the mezzanine bridges placed over the restored door arches, creating an ‘eye’ symbol that references both the camera lens and the viewer.
All images The timber structure of intersecting geometric shapes creates an interesting contrast between light and shade throughout the day
Pale parquet floor runs the length
of the galleries, which accommodate a series of large contemporary commissions and thematic displays that will be updated regularly. At the end of the linear room sequence is an interactive display, incorporating a pinhole camera, devised together with a cohort of 16 to 24-year olds to make the roots of camera technology more accessible.
Client V&A
Client Gibson Thornley Architects and Purcell Structural engineer Harley Haddow Lighting Michael Grubb Studio Area 57m2 Opened May 2023
ALL IMAGES: THOMAS ADANK
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