Retrofit Tours are a celebration of retrofitted buildings in the city of London. To bring to life the challenges of retrofit and showcase what is possible through collaboration, the Building Centre in conjunction with our partners, invites you to tours guided by the architects of some recently retrofitted buildings.
Operating in different contexts, retrofitted to varying degrees and for various reasons, each tour will make plain what is possible when we choose to work with what we already have, adapting it to the needs of the users. Join us for a guided tour by the architects followed by time to ask your burning questions.
Wates House, the home of The Bartlett School of Architecture, was dingy and cramped therefore, it did not reflect the creative goings on in the building and prevented the school from expanding.
Initially suggesting minor alterations Hawkins\Brown soon realised that a deep retrofit was key to resolving the school’s structural issues. After four years the school is now able to accommodate 1,000 staff and students, more than double its former capacity. The Bartlett is more interconnected, it can better facilitate socialising and collaboration and no longer detracts from the conservation status of the area.
Join us first, at the Building Centre for a quick tour of the Retrofit 24 exhibition after, we will walk over to The Bartlett School of Architecture where Euan Macdonald and Tom Noonan from Hawkins\Brown will take us on a guided tour of the key areas of interest. This will be followed by a Q&A. Find out what is required for a deep retrofit of a building frequented by hundreds of people and how to create a building that facilitates collaboration; a key requirement of a successful architecture school.
Schedule
10am- Arrive at the Building Centre
Join us for tea and coffee and an introduction to the Retrofit 24 exhibition
26 Store Street, London, WC13 7BT
10.40- Walk to The Bartlett School of Architecture
22 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0QB
11am- Tour Begins
11.40am- Informal Q&A
12pm- Event ends
- Euan Macdonald (Partner- Hawkins\Brown)
- Tom Noonan (Partner- Hawkins\Brown)
Euan has contributed towards a diverse portfolio of projects since joining Hawkins\Brown, covering the residential, education and civic sectors. He recently led the design and delivery of the award-winning 22 Gordon Street, home to The Bartlett School of Architecture together with a further suite of projects for the faculty. Euan is a RIBA Advisor and a member of several Design Review Panels. He has also lectured and been a visiting critic at several schools of architecture across the UK.
Tom leads a studio at Hawkins\Brown, working across a range of projects and sectors. He has led several education projects for UCL including the complex remodelling of 22 Gordon Street for The Bartlett School of Architecture and the Department of Engineering, and a new facility for UCL at Here East, which provides innovative space for new academic programmes in robotics, fabrication and engineering. Tom also runs Hawkins\Brown’s Design Communications Network, challenging and advancing the way we use drawings, visualisations and modelmaking to tell the stories of our projects.
