Sustainability Heating
www.heatingandventilating.net
repurposed for commercial properties
With the need to repurpose and refurbish older buildings now greater than ever, specifiers and contractors should look to retrofit solutions, says Steve Richmond, head of marketing and technical at Rehau Building Solutions Building Solutions
T
he coronavirus has transformed our city centres, and raised questions about how we use commercial buildings going forward. Alongside this, a report from the Mayor of London has highlighted that the UK’s capital has some of the world’s oldest building stock, and 80% of which will still be in use by 2050 – a situation no doubt mirrored in other British cities. Office buildings, so long the hub of city centre life, now stand empty due to COVID-19 and working-from-home arrangements. In turn, many shops have shut their doors due to lack of footfall, turning once-thrumming urban areas into virtual ghost towns.
Yet as we begin to recover from the pandemic, many companies are keeping
these new working arrangements intact, and looking to smaller offices and flexible attendance schedules as the way forward. This, in turn, raises a question – what do we do with these now-empty offices and shops?
Avoiding demolition
It has been proposed that these potentially obsolete properties be demolished, alongside older building stock, to make room for new properties that could alleviate the UK’s chronic housing shortage. While this may seem a logical option, it may not be the most sustainable or practical one, especially when we take into account the Government’s 2050 ‘net zero’ carbon emission targets. With the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) estimating that 51 per cent of a residential property’s lifecycle carbon is emitted during construction, demolition may therefore not be viable. By contrast, retrofitting and repurposing existing commercial space into housing could be seen as a less expensive, more eco-friendly approach. This has already begun to happen, with thinktanks like the
Social Market Foundation suggesting that 800,000 new homes could be created by adapting collapsed retail businesses, all of which will require heating. Crucially, the Government has taken action to make it easier to convert vacant buildings into housing, adopting changes detailed in the ‘Planning For The Future’ consultation paper published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in July. As a result, specifiers and contractors may find that an interesting new market has opened up, adapting heating systems for shops and offices so they are suitable for residential purposes.
However, though legislation has provided this opportunity, it must be noted that transforming commercial buildings in this way comes with its own unique challenges. Because of this, effective solutions are also required if heating systems in these spaces are to be practically and sustainably transformed.
January 2021
www.heatingandventilating.net
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