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- [00:12]
A
Hello and welcome to the Urbanist, Monocle's program all about the built environment. I'm your host, Andrew Tuck.
- [00:18]
B
Coming up, this is really an elephant in the room. No one likes to take risk and that's why transformation is way more complicated than new build.
- [00:27]
A
Today we look at adaptive reuse through two lenses. First, some blockbuster cases in the UK capital, including a look back at the Battersea Power Station redevelopment. Then we profile an attempt to get European cities to legislate for less demolition. Plus, we also find out how Vienna is moving to a more climate friendly heating system and see how retail can drive neighborhood development. That's all ahead in the next 30 minutes, right here on the Urbanist with me, Andrew Tuck. The redevelopment of Battersea Power Station was undoubtedly one of London's highest profile cases of adaptive reuse in recent memory. The historic industrial building was transformed into a landmark retail and hospitality destination over the course of more than a decade by the international architecture practice Wilkinson Eyre. Sebastian Ricard and Yasmin Alani Spence are directors at Wilkinson Eyre and Sebastian was the director in charge of Battersea Power Station while Yasmin is taking up the retrofit of another London landmark, the Citibank Building in Canary Wharf. I caught up with both them recently and I began by asking Sebastian to reflect on Battersea Power Station and what he learned in the process about restoration in our cities.
- [01:52]
C
I think probably the biggest thing I've learned on the project is the fact that actually you can do anything in a sense that a lot of people felt that project will never happen, it was too complex, too challenging, the building was in a very poor state. So I think if you put your mind into it, whether you're a client, whether you're a designer, what I've learned from that is you can always find a solution, a positive solution to a problem.
- [02:13]
D
When you go to other cities though, and you see disused pieces of the past industrial heritage, for example, does your mind start whirring now thinking about what other places could be doing? Are there lessons that you would like other city leaders to get by coming to see Pattersea?
- [02:28]
C
There's something very interesting and very challenging also for Battersea because Battersea is a one off project. So I think it's very difficult to compare other industrial assets with Battersea. But there is always a brief which can work in an industrial building. So yes, there's a lot of unused building and the challenge is very often they are polluted, they are contaminated, they are in a very poor state because industrial building typically are not maintained properly. So it's how do you find the suitable use and how do you find the funding for reusing them? That's the biggest challenge. But I think a lot of cities are looking at that now because they know that actually a lot of people, a lot of generation of people worked in those buildings. And very often the grandson of those people are people who have key role in the city. And I think retaining that emotional attachment to a place where a lot of people worked is something that people are getting to realize that it's essential.
- [03:22]
D
Yasmin, you're involved in an extraordinary project, the Citibank regeneration. So this is a tower in Canary Wharf. It was decided to kind of come to the end of its life in its current form. Tell people what you're doing, because the images are extraordinary.
- [03:37]
E
It's a similar story to Sebastian's, of course, completely different use. The use is worklace. The good thing about this particular project, it has an end user. So the design is very suited and tailored. It is an extraordinary project and it's very daring. That city decided to keep the tower and it's a huge learning curve also for the construction industry to adapt to these new ways of construction, to think a bit outside of the box of how things can be done. Because you haven't got a building site.
- [04:04]
D
Just tell me, because everyone's keen to know how you do this. Well, you're taking off the exterior of the building, only some of it.
- [04:12]
E
So we did a lot of research on it at the time. The Citibank had already done a survey of the quality of the facade, which was actually in pretty good condition. But there was an aspiration that if you renovating a whole building, it should also be visible on the facade somehow, that at one point in its life, that tower went through a change. So our idea was right from the beginning that we do this interruption at the base. So it's three stories at the base, three stories in the middle and three stories at the top. We follow the grid of the facade, but much bigger glass panes, much more open. So you see these interventions where there's also the biggest amenity spaces within the tower.
- [04:51]
D
Sebastian, for you, when you look at your project and other projects that are coming down the line now, this notion of trying to reuse what you have already on an existing site, but also in any project, the embedding of more sustainable practices, how evident is that in the way that you work? How much has your job changed, do you think, over the years as you begin the design process?
- [05:13]
C
I think historically, especially in uk Working on existing building as an architect used to be a bit of a dirty word. In other words, people architects used to do that because they couldn't access the commission of a new build. That was historically the thing. So every architect was aiming to work on the new build, but actually now it's really the reverse. Most of the most exciting clients and projects are actually reusing existing fabric. And actually in places it's pretty much impossible not to. So for instance, some of our major projects at the moment in the office, one of them is called Minster Court in the city. It's an existing building and you wouldn't be able to get planning consent. If you can't justify that, you can reuse a lot of that existing structure. So it's ingrained into the way we design. It's ingrained from the first drawing line. We need to demonstrate the carbon figure, the embodied carbon in construction to enable us to justify meeting the right target, which are for all the right reasons. When you have a substantial building on site, you're going to have to reuse it. So it's really ingrained in the way we think and the way we design. We do not built only in a way by exception. When there's a site where there's nothing there of any value, if there is something there, you can always find value into it. We should be clever enough to reuse that value.
- [06:27]
D
Yasmin, tell me you're involved in another project in London Favors inn, another reimagining of what the workspace should be. It just struck me when you were talking a little bit about the Citibank project, how much of your work intersects with psychologists, with people looking at human behavior and work patterns. And you talk about creating village and things. How did you, you know that this would be a solution for the building? How many other people feed into this design process?
- [06:52]
E
I think there's a certain amount of logic behind it. There's a certain self experience that we have from traveling and from going to other offices. Part of our work now is that stakeholder engagement as well. So it's a lot of listening of what works well for you as a client, what. What does not work well. So there's two things. There's the baseline that we have to always achieve, which is the air quality, light, connectivity. And then there's that second part that if you have an end user, to really go through what works for them. But the key is to design a space that is future proof, because what is today might not be tomorrow. We've all learned how the Pandemic turned everything around very quickly. So it has to have that certain rigor of its base quality and then the adaptive quality that an end user enjoys for their business. Because what might suit one business will not suit the other. So it's a lot of engagement, listening, getting other experts in and talking to the business.
- [07:55]
D
Maybe a question for both you trends that you're seeing. Is there a return to the demand for high quality office? Are you getting more life sciences buildings coming your way? What's the kinds of projects that you see more of coming your way these days?
- [08:10]
C
I think we definitely see a lot of good office building. So what I mean by good office building, there's still a really high demand for world class office buildings. So that's a trend which we see a lot. And even in central London that's a very busy market. I think for average office building it's difficult, but for really top office building there's still a massive appetite. So that's one market which is doing very well. And the trend in that market is definitively to try to create the most extraordinary building and the most extraordinary office environment. And very often what the occupier are looking for, they want more than a building, they want a place, they want to bring their staff into a place. So where you actually have a series of mix of activity and not just going to a place where you're going to sit at your desk. And I think that's a big trend at the moment. Is the real mixed use activity, the real mix use building. The vertical mix of activity in the Citibank is a great example, is something that we all look for. I think at the moment I sort.
- [09:10]
E
Of echo what Sebastian is saying. I hate always talking about the pandemic, but it was a big pivotal point. And the big pivotal point was we used to go to work to work. Now we can take work home with laptops and connections and whatever. So that changed our mindset that we don't just want also when we go to work and office anymore where we just sit at a desk because we have learned that we can move. So the workspaces are getting more interesting, mimicking more what you would have at home. The qualities, collaboration spaces, quiet spaces, focus spaces and all of those things. And also employers have changed their attitude. Many years ago if you didn't sit at your desk, well what are you doing? Whereas now it's nearly encouraged to move around in office spaces. So I think absolutely there's a very big demand for good spaces and people want to provide that.
- [09:57]
A
My thanks there to Sebastian Rickard and Yasmin Al Ani Spence from Wilkinson Air. According to the European Commission, construction accounts for a whopping 36% of all emissions. And so one of the hottest topics in architecture right now is how to adapt or transform existing buildings instead of tearing them down. But across Europe, different countries take different approaches to discouraging demolition. That's where House Europe comes in. There's a campaign launched by leading architects and academics to get a million signatures under the EU's European Citizen Initiative. If they do so, Parliament in Brussels must at least debate their aims and new legislation could emerge. But what are those aims? And how can we make reuse and adaptation the norm? Monocle's Denmark correspondent Michael Booth met with one of the Danish national organizers, Tamara Kalantajewska of Schmidt Hammer Larsen Architects, to learn more.
- [11:05]
B
What we are proposing is to make renovation much easier and transformation much easier. Basically different ways in which different countries in Europe already were successfully adopting them in their own legislation. But what we want to do is actually creating a common norm across Europe.
- [11:23]
F
So an outsider, it sounds like a no brainer. Of course we shouldn't be demolishing and building. We should be making the most of what we already have. But it's not that simple, is it? There's so much red tape, there are so many vested interests. What do you have to unpick to make the world a a more renovation.
- [11:39]
B
Friendly place is embedded in our free legal proposals and one of them is reduction, basically the tax reduction. So as well the people in Denmark, most of the demolition happens actually in the private sector when people demolish their single family houses and usually it's to build a house which is almost as big as what the house was before. Next proposal is touching upon the Transparency act which would de risk the transformation process because this is something, this is really an elephant in the room. No one likes to take risk and that's why by default transformation is way more complicated than new build.
- [12:17]
F
Because a developer can't issue a warranty, they can't guarantee the building.
- [12:21]
B
Yeah, at the moment there is no common way of estimating as well and kind of being able to de risk this process. So it's hard to get insurances, et cetera, it becomes way more expensive. And the other proposals as well about we're actually not accounting for embodied gray energy. Now there is different legislation in different countries, but on the European level there is no common legislation of that. You actually it is about CO2 which was already kind of which exists and stored in these buildings.
- [12:52]
F
Basically right now you can demolish a building and all of the energy that went into building that is not counted into any kind of calculations or there's no responsibility, there's no consequence of demolishing a building.
- [13:03]
B
Yeah, in many countries in EU it is. So in some it is accounted, but then there's a different way of calculating it.
- [13:09]
F
So I mean, who in Europe is.
- [13:10]
B
Leading on this in terms of embedded energy? Actually Denmark is very good, but in terms of legal general framework, Belgium is one of the leading countries. Basically they make it more affordable then as well, embedding in legislation the ways to de risk it to make the transformation process more transparent and easily manageable for construction companies. And in general, the kind of awareness of it in Belgium started earlier. Transformation, and not just historical transformation, but more like transformation from everyday users in a space is more common in Belgium. So there are a lot of smaller practices, smaller practitioners who constantly do adaptations and transform for many centuries.
- [13:55]
F
If you go to the House Europe site and read more about what you're proposing, there are some quite radical statements about the profit motive and developers. And you're quite radical. Are you worried that that might put some people off?
- [14:09]
B
It's interesting that you say that we're radical in a way. We're kind of really, I would call it more realistic. And I guess we all lived in the cities where we witnessed this process of demolition and then neighborhoods changing in a couple of years and then the price increase. And we all, I think working within the field, we've all witnessed this practice and somehow we try not to notice the elephant in the room. So it doesn't really seem too radical for us.
- [14:36]
F
We're talking here in the Danish Architecture School in Copenhagen and I'm wondering, the students here, I'm guessing they're already on board with this. They're kind of ahead of. They're much more into renovation and adaptation.
- [14:48]
B
Yes, absolutely. The students, I think coming out now, they're way more demanding. They're not so happy to go to the offices who don't address it.
- [14:58]
F
Yeah, I've heard that, that recruiting, it's become an issue in recruiting for large.
- [15:03]
B
Studios to attract talent, the people who are used to status quo. And you know, of course you have clients, you've been operating the business for a long time. They are forced to address it and actually to have a stance. And the students will ask them what's.
- [15:18]
F
The exciting challenge about adaptation and renovation.
- [15:21]
B
So in a way it requires more craft, more knowledge and more creativity to find the values of existing. And actually then Enrich the urban fabric we're already living in.
- [15:33]
F
As you'd expect, the Danish architecture school is really beautiful. It's out on Holman behind the Opera house in Copenhagen. But just around the corner are some other historic naval buildings which have been adapted for residential use and are amongst the most expensive apartments in the city. I put it to Tamara, this can often be a problem with renovation projects. They lead to gentrification, higher prices and the original inhabitants getting pushed out.
- [15:59]
B
You know, with social housing, for example, when you do in many countries, like Germany would be an example of it. Basically the rents go up. So idea that the whole movement is actually coupled with the thing that you are to transform, but in a way that people can stay and that you can control the rents. And then it's actually to benefit larger groups of people.
- [16:22]
F
But that's a difficult sell in the current economic framework.
- [16:25]
B
Especially maybe in the economic framework. But if you talk about political framework and knowing that there is an immense pressure on housing market and people are very unhappy and it is becoming. We just witnessed protests in Spain. It should. Is becoming increasingly unaffordable. I think that in this way House Europe is a movement at the right time. It's harder to speculate once you have to operate with what is existing and what is smaller and kind of the smaller builders, smaller renovation practices would be able to enter. But of course it still should be controlled as well through legal proposals. So we're really focused that it becomes part of new legislation.
- [17:08]
F
And I guess the real challenge is all of those buildings on the outskirts of the big cities across Europe that went up in the 60s and 70s, the large housing projects that everyone hates. That's your real challenge, isn't it? To transform them into something attractive and appealing.
- [17:22]
B
And just the fact that someone doesn't consider them valuable, or this idea that you need to demolish to mix people or to help them socially or economically. Yeah, I find totally flawed. Right. So this is a big part of it, but as well this yet to transform. But transform in a way that people don't have to move out and be replaced by someone with higher income or different nationality.
- [17:49]
F
Do you see a future where it will be cheaper or as cheap to renovate and adapt? And how are you going to get rid of all those vested interests? Big concrete.
- [18:00]
B
That's a complicated question. And I don't think that necessarily we can help them, but maybe by bringing other actors who would benefit more from the transformation becoming the norm, we could actually then change the market. Sort of all new businesses which are emerging Now, I think that this is really rapidly changing, but we need a new legislation to help it out. And it's true, there's a lot of lobbyism because there's no reason for concrete to be that cheap. Right. It's just that emissions are hidden in different places around the world and you only account for a certain part in a place where you're actually using it. And basically using these loopholes in legislation, you're able to make it that cheap.
- [18:47]
F
You're exporting the CO2.
- [18:49]
B
You're exporting the CO2.
- [18:50]
F
If people are interested and want to go and see what you think of as a great adaptation project somewhere in Europe, that's already been done. Where would you point them to?
- [18:59]
B
I would point them to La Caton Vassal's project Tourbou a le Pretre in Paris. It's a social housing transformation. And the beauty of it was that people actually didn't. There was really minimal time when they have to move out for the new balconies and exoskeleton to be installed. So this is an amazing example of social transformation.
- [19:21]
F
You can read more about the European Citizen initiative at HouseEurope EU. And they're also participating in the new exhibition at the Danish Architecture center in Copenhagen. It's called Recycle and it runs to September. For Monocle in Copenhagen, I'm Michael Booth.
- [19:43]
A
Vienna takes pride in its record on tackling climate change. Earlier this year, it passed a bespoke climate act that commits the city to becoming climate neutral by 2040. But it's not without its challenges. Of the city's 1 million or so households, half still rely on individual gas boilers, units that not only require annual servicing, but also, of course, burn gas. Monocle's Alexei Korolev in the Austrian capital reports on how City hall is trying to move residents away from gas and and towards district heating powered by alternative energy sources.
- [20:22]
G
Cities are both a major contributor to and a casualty of climate change and its unwelcome companion. Extreme weather. Last autumn, when storm borers pummeled parts of central and southern Europe, it was urban areas that bore the brunt. Vienna, too, was hit by heavy rainfall and flooding. So it's little wonder that city authorities across the continent are now racing to cut carbon emissions. And Vienna may be the most ambitious of them all. The city has pledged to become climate neutral by 2040, a full decade ahead of the EU's official target. At the heart of that promise is a major overhaul of its heating systems.
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H
My name is Thomas Kreitmaier. I work for the city of Vienna and I'm responsible for the program of the heat transition. The program is pushing for a switch to environmentally friendly heating sources. So to get rid of gas, which is still needed for about 600,000 households.
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G
There is, however, one problem.
- [21:25]
H
The specific situation in Vienna is that we have hundreds of thousands of apartments that use gas on the apartment level. So this is rather unique, not very special, not something we are proud of, but it is like it is. 600,000 apartments are supplied by Natural Gas today. About 500,000 of them use gas with the boiler in the apartment. And 10,000 have gas centralized in their building. And several thousand apartments use oil. But we have about 500 buildings that belong to the city of Vienna. We're trying to retrofit them and show how to supply them with other sources than gas and to establish this role model.
- [22:18]
G
500 buildings is already a big number. Never mind the 500,000 flats still using their own gas port at the moment. Removing these boilers isn't compulsory and it's not City hall of the energy companies who are responsible for doing it. That job falls to building owners and management firms. And they also have to arrange the connection to the district heating system. Vienna Leguy runs all of Vienna's district heating and Martin Meyrat is the spokesman for the city owned company.
- [22:46]
I
So if you want to change a typical Viennese house, which now has individual gas burners in every flat, to the district heating systems, you need to do two things. You need to bring the Fernwehrmen, the district heating, into the house, but you also need to be able to distribute the heat inside the house. Now, this is not our responsibility, but of course it means that if you want to change the heating system in the house, it does require some renovation.
- [23:16]
G
But if it's not mandatory, why would people do that?
- [23:20]
I
Well, district heating systems are really the most convenient form of heating, because you connect your house once Vidanegi takes care of decarbonization and you don't have running costs of you have to exchange this gas bottle, you have to exchange that gas bottle. You will have to renovate your gas risers, you don't have all that. So it is a comfortable solution for the people living in the apartments, but also for the house owners. But apart from that, for densely populated areas, the district heating system is really the best solution. District heating is generated in large, very efficient plants. This means that compared to individual gas burners, it produces only about one tenth of the CO2 emissions. This is going to be further reduced in the coming years because Vidanagi is going to decarbonize the production of the district heating entirely by 2040.
- [24:12]
G
Heating is just one part of Vienna's climate roadmap for 2040, but it's one of the biggest. The energy transition that policymakers here talk about isn't just empty words, though. There have been major changes before from wood to coal and from coal to gas. So there's no reason to think this next move from gas to renewables won't happen too. The the gas boilers will have to go eventually and the authorities are offering subsidies to help. It won't be cheap. But City Hall's message is clear. This is for the benefit of everyone, and it's hard to argue with that. For Monocle Radio in Vienna, I'm Alexi Korolev.
- [24:57]
A
Finally, today we look at how redeveloping a neighbourhood with retail in mind can prove transformative for a city. Peter Burt Anderson is the founder of bric, an urban development firm that creates neighbourhoods, buildings and spaces with a focus on supporting local social and sustainable behavior, all rooted in retail. We caught up with him a few months ago and I began our conversation by asking about one of the firm's current projects, the redevelopment of a ferry terminal in the Danish city of Aarhus.
- [25:29]
J
It's a huge project for us. I mean, the whole idea here is instead of creating a classic monumental architecture to sort of like say, okay, what was the medieval city? And how can we bring the medieval, the low rise, the narrow streets, how can we bring that out to the old ferry terminal? We sort of like said, okay, what if we had, you could say, a philosophy where we would say urban life defines the squares and the landscape, and these two together defines the structural elements of the city. So it's public squares before architecture. And our role is we have created an urban life strategy very early on that was then informing landscape and these two are then informing architecture and structural planning. So it's us and then we work together with Sled and Kobe. So it's basically the team. We were also working together on Aarhuskel in North Harbor.
- [26:21]
D
We hear again and again and we know for a fact that Denmark is very ambitious, has been for 30 years about moving to more walkable cycle city. So when you have come to build this project, you have all those things as given people want those things. You're not, as in some capitals, still persuading people it's a good idea to be on a bicycle. So is this almost a car free neighborhood? How do you work with the demands of the Danish public these days?
- [26:46]
J
All the Learnings we have done from previous projects will try to avoid the mistakes that was obviously also involved in other projects. But what I think is crucial here is can we actually take the aspect of the commercial part of the city to another latitude? Because we have to accept that the commercial part, equal to the recreational and cultural part of the city, is probably why we want to live in an area. So can we push that even further? Can we be potentially even less dogmatic? Or how can we attract people who actually want to create these communities that we all are looking for? And I think that's my belief also that the developers here, they are local and they carry a strong, strong love for Aarhus. I think that they want to go to a certain length in order to make it even more radical. In terms of that operators, the commercial aspect, are there to sort of like glue the community together.
- [27:41]
D
Good retail, it brings life to street. A good cafe is a place where people meet and congregate. Are you already lining up partners or are the developers rather lining up partners who they already think will be the anchor places where this element of community will come to play?
- [27:57]
J
We are, for instance, we're talking with a potential operator there who potentially will operate a book bookstore, but that at the same time could be potentially a residency for authors. And we're trying to stretch all these, making hybrid concepts that can be both transactional, like traditional retail, but also can hold other aspects into it. And then, of course, in the whole vision for the area, we're also looking to new building materials to reuse to the whole idea of building more environmental friendly. It can be also that we would introduce new residential forms, you know, like, can we live smaller because we have an extended living room in the public realm.
- [28:40]
D
Elsewhere in the country, you're looking at other projects, housing, again, using new materials, almost setting a test for yourself to see how green and clean you can be as you make homes. Tell us about that.
- [28:54]
J
I think. I think actually basically my biggest challenge is also my biggest opportunity is that I am not a trained architect. So in order to attract skilled architects to my studio, I also need to give them a playground. I have a lot of very young architects. They are very interested in biogene materials and new ways of creating housing. So we found a developer who was equally interested in this. And now we are creating 28 row houses just outside Copenhagen. And we have announced that we will hit an LCA on these 28 row houses of 3.2.
- [29:29]
D
So just explain to people who don't know what LCA and 3.2 is. Because that's a very low number. Explain to people what that means.
- [29:35]
J
That's a life cycle assessment. So basically it's the amount of CO2 being used in the building itself, but also in the operation of the building afterwards. So in Denmark, I would say say an average LCA level would be 9 or 10. We have a reduction roadmap where we are going for a number of around 5.8. So 3.2 is very, very low. And the young guns in my studio, they tell me, but Peter is not really true because it will be even lower. But we don't dare to announce that figure.
- [30:08]
D
It's funny for some developers, when they see these numbers and targets, they see them as restrictions. You obviously see them as liberations.
- [30:16]
J
I see these numbers and you could say limitations. I also see them as opportunities because I see them as a realm for us to push the boundaries. And we have to find smaller developers. Who wants to go on this journey because we cannot ask probably the big funds to sort of like be the ones who experiment. And so we need a lot of smaller projects where we can take a lot of learnings from and then anchor it in the bigger developments. I think that the studios like ours, like our peers, we have an obligation to really be on that playground.
- [30:49]
D
How do you share the information from a project like this once it's completed? Because some of it you want to keep to yourself, but I'm sure you also want to make sure that other people can step up and do these things. Are you able to kind of disseminate this kind of information to other people as well then?
- [31:03]
J
Yeah. I know Espen, who is head of architecture at our studio. He's more than willing to share everything here in open source and invite people can be both other studios, but also developers. And it's not necessarily that we have to be on board on a project. We would like to share the knowledge as equally as we have shared the knowledge we have within retail over the past 10, 15 years. Because we think that it's important in Google ingredients to how we live lives in our cities.
- [31:33]
A
My thanks there to Peter Burr Anderson. And that's all for this week's episode of the Urbanist. You can follow us for new editions of the show every week. And you can subscribe to Monocle magazine for reports on all things design, architecture and urbanism too. Just visit monocle.com the Urbanist is produced by Carlos Rebelo and by Davey Stevens, who also edits the show. I'm Andrew Tuck. Goodbye and thank you for listening, city lovers.