Breaking the cycle of demolish, rebuild

Back in 2018, one of The Developer’s first podcasts was an interview with Linda Thiel, director of White Arkitekter’s London studio. The Scandinavian practice had been hired for the second phase of the regeneration of the Gascoigne estate in east London, replacing 1960s high rise blocks while adopting what the practice calls a “Scandinavian approach” with an emphasis on public space.

More than four years on, Thiel got in touch to say that there had been a change in the practice’s thinking and, for the final phases of the project, they were now proposing that rather than demolish the original buildings, they should consider retrofitting them.

Not only would this save massive amounts of embodied carbon, there was the potential that residents could stay in their homes, avoiding the destruction of communities.

Such an approach could break a cycle of demolish and rebuild that began in the 1950s when the Edwardian terraced housing that sat on the Gascoigne site was razed, having been condemned as slums, creating the intergenerational trauma of eviction and loss of social capital. When its replacement, the Gascoigne Estate, fell out of favour, residents were evicted in phases ahead of demolition, beginning in 2014.

In an interview for a new podcast, Thiel explains the genesis of White Arkitekter and Civic Engineers’ investigation into the feasibility of retrofit. The study was carried out independently of the council’s development arm, BeFirst, which is leading the estate’s regeneration. 

“We’d been trusted by BeFirst to work on so many different phases,” she recounts. “So Gareth Atkinson of Civic Engineers and I said: Let’s just do our own piece of research and then present it to BeFirst as almost like a thought provocation.” 

The premise was simple: “Is there a way that we can actually keep the residents and tenants within their homes so you don’t have to break up the community and families and all the children going to these really great schools on the estates?”

The success of earlier phases of investment and construction might have made retrofit a more viable option. When the project began, Thiel says the Gascoigne was not a sought-after location. “There was a big stigma around the estate” with “lots of gang crime … it didn’t feel particularly safe.”                                                                                                                                                  

Thiel says that while the council tenants who were decanted during the first phase of development had the right to return, few wanted to, preferring to live in the borough’s Becontree Estate. “But interestingly, for the later phases, residents that have right of return have applied to come back because they can see what BeFirst is delivering,” Thiel says. 

The area of the estate covered by the retrofit feasibility study consists of a combination of 12-storey towers and three-storey low-rise buildings. Much of the report focuses on the towers, and in particular, says Thiel, comparing the relative merits of a deep retrofit versus a lighter refurbishment.

“Do we need to strip it down to the bare bones – slabs and columns and the loadbearing walls? Can we add second stairs, more risers? How could we bring these towers up to new-build space standards?

“On the other hand, could we just boost these homes – renovate them? New bathrooms, kitchens, look at the fabric to better the energy performance.

“Interestingly, none of the existing buildings have balconies. So that was an easy win. OK, we need to add balconies, make sure that the flats are better insulated. And then, how do we bring the kitchens and bathrooms up to current regs? Could we slot in bathroom pods and other MMC elements like we would on any other new-build?”

The actual towers have “really good bones because they’re H-shaped, so there are gaps where we could add additional risers and second stairs,” Thiel claims.

One major challenge was that BeFirst wanted to increase the density of housing on the estate – doubling the number of homes in this particular phase from 400 to 800. At the same time, a defining aspect of White Arkitekter’s approach concerns placemaking, creating courtyards and parks. In order to create public spaces and more homes, the report concluded that they would have to demolish parts of the low-rise housing while adding some new-build infill.