Knowle relocation project............................................. "Should we build less and reuse more?"

At a recent seminar in Bristol held by the Glass House...
Futures Forum: Community-led design from the Glass House
... asked whether we need to 'build less and reuse more'.

This ties in with ideas for Knowle: that the District Council does not need to build new elsewhere, but could reuse the current building:
Futures Forum: Knowle: old bricks vs new build: embodied carbon: letter
Futures Forum: "A truly green alternative to EDDC's proposal"
Futures Forum: Knowle plans: flats
Futures Forum: Knowle plans: 1970s building
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: open-plan offices
Futures Forum: Solar photovoltaic system at Escot ... and at Knowle?
Futures Forum: Costs of relocating District Council offices vs costs of refurbishing Knowle
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: getting the figures straight
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: moving to Skypark... and Flooding in the West Country
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: District Council vote to spend £1million on Skypark: blog reports


Should we build less and reuse more?

• Reuse is more appropriate than new build development 
for the current environmental, economic and social 
challenges facing our places. 

• The short cycles of government and their influence on 
planning and development decisions can be a great 
obstacle to the continuity of collaborative efforts to 
improve the quality of our places. 

• The argument that the cost of retrofitting buildings 
and spaces is too high is flawed; creatively retroffitting a 
space can lead to cheaper running costs in the long 
term. 

• Why are we not getting things right when we have so 
much knowledge about how to create and shape great 
places that are loved and enlivened by people?

www.theglasshouse.org.uk/media/29/1229-gh_13-14-debate-series-reflections-single.pdf


Should we build less and reuse more? A round-up of the Bristol debate
Posted 6 Feb 2014
16:38 / Written by Louise Dredge

Should we build less and reuse more? The answer to this question might seem obvious in an age when the concept of ‘sustainability’ is a preface to every discussion about growth and development.

On Wednesday evening in Bristol, we invited three speakers to share their views and brought together an audience with a shared interest in how places work and how they can be the best they can be, now and in the future. Our three speakers represented three distinct voices – a designer, a community activist and a commercial developer – sharing an open, equal platform.

Should we build less?

Interestingly, most people acknowledged that we need to build more! Community speaker Chris Chalkley (chairperson of the Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft) referred to the ever-expanding world population: when Chris was born the total population was estimated at 3 billion; it now stands at 7 billion and is predicted to reach 10 billion by 2050. There is no doubt that we need to build more to accommodate this growth. More locally, the housing shortage in the UK means that more housing needs to be built, and with that, more infrastructure and services.

Importantly though, all three speakers argued that we need to build better. Taking us back to the days before sustainability became the buzzword in development terms, audience member Richard Guise reintroduced the concept of the 3Ls in developing our places and spaces – think long life, low energy and loose fit.

Should we reuse more?

In order to better support reuse most agreed that the 3Ls were crucial. Mayor of Bristol George Ferguson, speaking from the audience, said “we should be building buildings to reuse them”. However, speaker Kieran Lilley, an architect with Bristol-based practice Stride Treglown shared his challenges in negotiating design briefs with client developers, specifically on student housing projects, where there is little room or scant desire to allow for spaces that could be adapted for other uses in the future.

The high cost of retrofitting buildings and spaces is a common argument for demolishing and rebuilding. Speaker Gavin Bridge, a director of Cubex Land, acknowledged that refurbishment is often more expensive but also argued, through the example of his company’s redevelopment of 1 Victoria Street in Bristol, where 98% of the material taken from the building was recycled, that creatively retrofitting a space can lead to cheaper running costs in the long term. Many also felt that our financial model is broken, and the fact that VAT is still applied to refurbishment is but one example of this.

Quite a few times, a recent planning change – the ability to change the use of office premises to residential use was raised as an opportunity to unlock potential in place. Quite apart from the preservation and reuse of listed structures, we discussed the unloved office blocks built in the 1970s and 1980s that can be found across many cities in the UK, which many felt would make ideal homes. Indeed, Gavin Bridge argued that in the context of vacant shops that litter endless high streets across the island, these spaces should be recycled and replaced by schools that would act as a catalyst for regenerating town centres. An interesting idea!

It’s not just about buildings though. The spaces in between buildings, the infrastructure that supports our cities must also be considered. Small changes, such as the action of a community group to apply a new coat of paint to a beloved but neglected streetscape, can reinvigorate and renew places and spaces and have a big impact.

What about collaboration in place, and in reusing and reimagining our places?

Audience member Ann de Graft-Johnson, shared her experience of the dangers of allowing participatory processes to fail. Development, she felt, is still affected by the mistrust of developers towards communities and often, what people value is ignored. The repercussions are immense:

“Everytime you do this, you dismantle community and it takes a lot of energy to put it back again.”

The short cycle of politics and its influence on planning and development decisions is a great obstacle to the continuity of collaborative efforts to improve the quality of our places. This is also compounded by the current shortage of local authority planners, which is frustrating many attempts to bring collaborative projects forward.

Why are we not getting things right when we have so much knowledge about how to create and shape great places that are loved and enlivened by people?

We need to be brave!

We ended with Chris Chalkley, who believed that until we address the issues around equality and liberty in our society, achieving this is impossible.

In his words: “It starts with values”.

Should we build less and reuse more? A round-up of the Bristol debate | The Glass-House Community Led Design
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