From decline to delight - a practical guide to reusing buildings
Date & Time

26 September 2023
18:00 - 20:30 BST

Location

Online and at The Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EL
View on Google Maps

Price

Free

From decline to delight - a practical guide to reusing buildings

From decline to delight - a practical guide to reusing buildings

Tag
Author
Date published
Price
Lecture
Date & Time

26 September 2023
18:00 - 20:30 BST

Location

Online and at The Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EL
View on Google Maps

Price

Free

The second of the History Study Group's autumn lecture series, celebrating it's 50th anniversary, will introduce considerations, challenges and opportunities when looking to repurpose an existing building.

There are many good reasons to reuse our existing and historic buildings: cultural significance, a sense of place, high quality workmanship and materials. We can also quantify the carbon already embodied in our building stock and set that against the alternative of demolition and rebuild. But reusing existing buildings brings with it challenge, compromise and a degree of engineering judgement.
 
Using examples, this talk will look at the practical realities of repurposing existing buildings: how we know what we are working with; how we might address and resolve some of the challenges. It will also consider some of the cultural shifts needed to make reuse the norm rather than the exception. 

Reason to attend

  • Discover the challenges that reuse presents to practicing engineers and how to address them
  • Consider why reuse is often not the starting point, even as we go deeper into climate crisis 
  • Feel more confident about how to advocate for existing buildings and more positive about their future

Intended for

The lecture is open to anyone and may be of particular interest to:

  • Practicing engineers who want a practical starting point for discussions in their office and with clients
  • Anyone who advocates for derelict, redundant or underused buildings which deserve a future but are at risk of being lost

Speaker

Margaret Cooke

Director, Integral Engineering Design

Margaret is a Conservation Accredited consulting structural engineer working primarily with existing, listed or derelict buildings. She is one of the founding Directors of a practice of 25 based in Bath and London with projects throughout the UK. She won the IABSE Milne Medal in 2021 for her work in existing buildings. In particular, she advocates ‘listening to’ the building and understanding its strengths and weaknesses. This way a design can generally be discreet and gentle but bold where design flair adds real value.

Location

Contact

Email - [email protected]

You may also be interested in