Brought to you by the Architects’ Journal. AJ sustainability editor Hattie Hartman and co-host Rachael Owens talk to changemakers and innovators who are transfo...
Tara Gbolade: ‘It’s unsustainable for small practices not to upskill’
Episode 56. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and Rachael Owens.
Gbolade Design Studio’s Tara Gbolade shares insights from her new book, Changing the Game: How to be a sustainable and regenerative small practice.
Gbolade champions the nimbleness of small practices that enables them to rapidly pivot toward a more regenerative future. Drawing from her own experience and through a series of short case studies (nimtim, Knox Bhavan, Studio Gil, among others), she shares the simple steps designers can take to upskill without being ‘overwhelmed’.
Four-strong Gbolade Design Studio recently won an AJ architecture award for Hermitage Mews, eight net-zero town houses in Crystal Palace. In this episode, we also delve into the challenges and successes of that project. ‘What I’m most proud of is the friendships we built. We had a predominantly female-led team that has grown well past the project. We’re at each other’s hen dos and weddings,’ says Gbolade.
Collaboration is central to Gbolade Design Studio’s ethos. Shared values of sustainability, transparency and joyfulness determine the clients and projects the practice chooses to take on. Included in her book (co-authored with her business partner and husband Lanre Gbolade), is a ‘client assessment chart’ that sets out criteria for evaluating potential clients.
A founding member of the Paradigm Network that champions Black and Asian representation in the built environment, Gbolade touches on why the industry still has a long way to go. ‘We need procurement teams and client teams to be intentional, because none of this can happen without intentionality’.
In conjunction with this episode, RIBA Publishing is offering a 20% discount on Tara’s book. Use this code: CTG20 (valid until June 30).
For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.
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‘Even a small practice can push the boundaries of reuse’ – Brisco Loran
Episode 55. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and Rachael Owens.
AJ Climate Champions’ latest series focuses on retrofit. Our guest today is Thom Brisco of Brisco Loran, who talks to us about Costa's Barbers, a live-work shopfront which triumphed in the Project under £500,000 category at the AJ Architecture Awards last week.
Brisco describes the conversion of a former barbers in Battersea High Street for Arrant Industries into a home/office for himself and his partner Pandora Loran. Enabled by the recent expansion of ‘retail to residential’ permitted development rights, Costa’s Barbers sports a yellow shopfront, maroon signage and a deep awning which is rolled out on sunny afternoons or when ‘it’s spitting’, providing a popular place to linger and chat.
The architects have packed ingenuity into Costa Barbers’ 54 square metres. The shopfront incorporates sliding sash windows with panels of translucent patterned glass that can be adjusted for degrees of privacy. Behind is a tiled front room - which is used as an office and living space - and at the back the bedrooms are raised above ground level, due to flood risk from the nearby Thames.
The project incorporates numerous salvaged materials, including corbels which support the awning box that are made of quarter sawn snooker table legs. ‘We definitely feel like a different kind of architect now,’ says Brisco. ‘The process of going through a build like this has made us less precious about having all the decisions made up front and knowing where our materials are going to come from.’
The architects designed and self-built the project while living on site, which meant ‘two years without a shower, two years without heating and two years of all of our stuff covered in dust.’
Sponsored by Holcim Foundation Awards.
For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.
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IF_DO’s Sarah Castle: ‘People become the project’
Episode 54. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and Rachael Owens.
AJ Climate Champions latest series focuses on retrofit. Our guest today is IF_DO founder Sarah Castle, who explains that community engagement is not just asking people what they want, but what they can do.
‘It’s about giving people the power to change their environments and making them feel part of it,’ Castle explains in this episode. It’s an approach that is at the heart of IF_DO’s work and is manifest in their work in Hastings, East Sussex, where they have transformed derelict buildings into affordable, community-centric spaces for social enterprise Hasting Commons.
We discuss the refurbishment of the grand 1924 Observer Building which had suffered more than three decades of neglect and a dozen owners when IF_DO took on the project. The first phase created a cultural venue with exhibition, theatre and music spaces, workspace, a cafe and gym. ‘It’s a space that can hold everything - from raves to weddings,’ says Castle.
IF_DO’s approach prioritises ‘essential improvements over cosmetic enhancements.’ Rather than allowing ourselves to get ‘overexcited about tile colours,’ we have to focus on making the building ‘robust, well-insulated and easy to look after,’ says Castle. The building’s intricately detailed faience facade has been upgraded through a careful balance of repair and renewal.
Central to IF_DO’s work is an understanding of procurement that is driven by available grant funding, which Castle terms ‘pod,’ phased organic development. Hastings Commons has secured over 100 grants over the last decade. The Observer Building is owned as a community land trust, which provides a legal framework to ensure affordability and perpetuity. ‘This creates protected spaces within a sphere of gentrification, where rents are controlled below market rates,’ Castle explains. ‘It’s about forever,’ she says.
Sponsored by Holcim Foundation Awards.
For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.
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Chipperfield’s MC Piccinelli on how retrofit can enhance creativity
Episode 53. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and Rachael Owens.
AJ Climate Champions is back, with a new series focusing on retrofit. Our guest today is Maria-Chiara Piccinelli, associate director and project lead on the London School of Economics’ Firoz Lalji Global Hub (FLGH).
In the episode she explains how each building element requires one-to-one conversations to determine the best reuse, and that the contractor must be on the same journey. After deconstruction at FLGH, up to 70% of bricks were broken or crushed powder.
Piccinelli argues that a new design aesthetic, a hyperlocal vernacular, can emerge from the specificity of the building, its materials and its location. She cautions against the standard default response of using timber, insisting that all materials should be explored.
Sponsored by Holcim Foundation Awards.
For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.
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Why earth is the ultimate circular material
Episode 52. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and Joe Jack Williams.
To achieve replication at scale, Nicolas Coeckelberghs of Brussels-based BC Materials favours compressed earth blocks over rammed earth.
‘Our goal is to bring earthen construction from a niche to a growing market,’ says Coeckelberghs. He likens this challenge to playing chess on multiple fronts, creating demand while simultaneously supplying the market. While acknowledging the aesthetic appeal of rammed earth, Coeckelberghs cautions that it is technically complex and unaffordable at scale.
In this episode, Coeckelberghs describes BC Architects’ 15-year trajectory from its first earth building in Burundi, to the proliferation of collaborative workshops which led to a strand of consultancy work, to the creation of cooperative BC Materials in 2018. This led in turn to the recent launch of Léém, a manufacturing company that produces circular materials: unfired bricks, and clay plasters and paints.
While Coeckelberghs is an innovator, he is also pragmatic and advocates focusing on easy wins. ‘Don’t use earth to make facades, just use it to make structures inside,’ he says. He sees enormous scope for application of earth blocks internally where they are protected from the weather and hence more durable.
In search of a way to scale the earth blocks production, BC Materials visited concrete and brick manufacturers across Belgium to understand their manufacturing techniques and explore possibilities for collaboration. Partnerships with large manufacturers are now underway, and BC Materials produces its blocks through ‘industrial co-working’, using the larger plants’ production line during their ‘off’ hours.
For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.
Brought to you by the Architects’ Journal. AJ sustainability editor Hattie Hartman and co-host Rachael Owens talk to changemakers and innovators who are transforming architecture by designing in ways that respect planetary boundaries.
Show notes & more info here: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts
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