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architect: teamwork
Place: London
Completion Date: 2023
GROUPWORK’s latest project in London’s Farringdon neighborhood seeks to restore the facades of eight historic buildings that were demolished in the 1960s. The office building’s new envelope, located at 8 Bleeding Heart Yard, features aluminum screens designed to mimic the original stone. It is built on the structure of the successor of the demolished building, a humble medieval office.
In 2018, the office building was acquired by Seaforth Land. The developer hired GROUPWORK to perform structural renovations.
Any changes to the building will require approval from London’s city planners, as it is located in one of London’s many listed conservation areas and new design proposals are subject to a lengthy review and approval process. The previous owners of 8 Bleeding Heart Yard twice submitted planning applications to add additional floors to the property, but neither was approved.
Amin Taha, founder and chairman of GROUPWORK said one“, “As an architect, I looked at the planning proposals and thought, OK, I can understand why it failed. Planners and conservation officers said, look, this is already an ugly building in a nice conservation area. Adding these two layers of pseudo-glass extension on top of a brick and concrete structure just makes it uglier. “
The office tower does not occupy the entire zoned envelope, providing the architects with the opportunity to design the extension. GROUPWORK developed a proposal which would see the façade of the original row of historic buildings restored and the existing structure reused. Floor extensions and roof levels will also be added to reclaim the block’s original footprint.
To simulate the appearance of the historic building, GROUPWORK enlisted the assistance of London-based heritage consultancy Donald Insall Associates. The consultants discovered archival survey drawings and historical photographs of eight buildings on the site.
The intention was never to replicate or completely reconstruct the demolished structure. Instead, Taha describes it as an exercise in “editing memory.”
He added, “If you look at Historic England guides about buildings in conservation areas, it tends to say it’s best not to imitate other neighboring buildings. Don’t try to imitate them, but respect them in some way.”
Taha went on to describe a desire to promote the preservation of sensitive buildings. “No matter where you go in the world, there’s a sense of nostalgia for older people, even if they’ve never experienced it. In London, when you build in conservation areas, people say, ‘Why not What about making it look Victorian or Georgian? It was a beautiful period. I think it’s pretty common everywhere. It’s not unique to Britain”
“Some of the strange things you find when you design in the center of London is that you effectively edit history to create an ideal narrative, forgetting that the Victorian and Georgian periods were actually quite difficult for most people to access . So why do we say that architecture represents a better society? That’s not the case,” Taha added.
GROUPWORK’s restoration project embraces the “flawed narrative” of nostalgia.
This concept is perhaps best embodied in one of the firm’s early projects, 168 Upper Street, where the architects recast the facade of a demolished Victorian terrace. Although the details of the reconstruction are historically accurate, the windows are punched in locations dictated by function, regardless of the cast sills.
Although the contours are precise, the irregularities of 8 Bleeding Heart Yard are still clearly visible upon closer inspection. The facade is actually a thin metal screen that lets in natural light, and the building’s columns don’t quite reach the ground and appear to float a few inches above the sidewalk. The structure also has a discreet asymmetry – as if elements have been moved or deleted.
The Palazzo del Te, designed by the Italian Mannerist Giulio Romano, was the reference point for the project. Romano’s palace design used the language of classical architecture, employing rustic touches, dislocations and asymmetry throughout the building. GROUPWORK employed a similar disrespect for detail and order in its restoration work.
For the building’s envelope, GROUPWORK retained much of the existing brick envelope, removing only the single-pane windows and interior plaster wall cladding. A layer of thermal insulation was added to the retained brick structure. The street-facing substrate consists of an inch-thick 1/20 perforated aluminum screen suspended less than an inch from the insulation to create ventilation isolation. These panels are 30% porous, allowing light to pass through the screen.
An extra floor was added above the structure, designed to the specifications of the original roof and constructed from cross-laminated timber (CLT) posts and beams. Along the back of the structure, additional leasable floor area was added by extending each floor outwards, again using CLT, to occupy open space previously designated for parking. Through a combination of horizontal and vertical CLT addition, GROUPWORK restores the outline of the original structure.
As a company, GROUPWORK has a particular focus on materials research and carbon sequestration. To calculate the emissions forecast for 8 Bleeding Heart Yard, the company used EN15978 – the UK standard system for carbon life cycle assessment of buildings. The carbon accounting informed the architects’ material choices, including CLT and aluminum, and their decision to maintain the office building’s existing structure.
GROUPWORK has shared the results of their EN15978 study which shows that the renovation of 8 Bleeding Heart Yard is carbon negative in terms of embodied carbon. This is due to the choice of materials and the use of high-performance energy systems within the building, including passive HVAC and air-source heat pumps. Over the building’s lifetime (estimated 70 years), the building’s operating energy consumption will be 0.8 pounds of carbon dioxide per square foot.
Overall, 8 Bleeding Heart Yard has achieved a number of challenging and conflicting design requirements. Historically, it is sensitive to its surroundings, sequestering carbon while expanding leasable area.
Project specifications
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