Category: Retrofit

Meldrum House was an unsightly concrete office building from the late 1950s in an attractive, residential Victorian street in Edinburgh. The building had reached the end of its lifespan, and the concrete cladding was spalling and falling away.The conventional approach to a building in this condition would have been demolition. But having considered both options, the embodied carbon savings potential made retrofit an imperative. However, the cellular design and low ceilings were no longer compatible with modern requirements for office […]

New Olympia House is a sensitive adaptive reuse project, which has transformed a former Salvation Army Citadel in Bridgeton, Glasgow, into 280m2 of commercial office space, announced onto the streetscape by a sculptural metal entrance tower. The project makes careful interventions, while improving the sustainability and lifespan of the existing building to create something special for the community. The existing red sandstone building lacked insulation, had low ceilings, internal rooms and obscured windows. The 1927 drawings of the building show […]

Biggar Youth Project is a voluntary organisation which runs activities for High School age young people in Biggar, South Lanarkshire. They support them by providing a base for a range of activities, a place to gather and access hot food, food-share, computers, games and the emotional and practical support of the volunteers and staff that run the space. The building dates back to the late 1800s, and was formerly part of a much larger livestock auction market. Following the foot […]

Rosslyn Castle sits within Rosslyn Chapel Precinct, one of the most significant heritage sites in Midlothian. The castle is in Roslin Glen, the largest surviving tract of ancient woodland in the area, and was historically protected by the sweep of the North Esk river that runs through the Glen. Approaching from the north, the castle is relatively modest in scale. It is only when the imposing south façade is revealed that its true proportions become clear; the castle rises over […]

The Coach House is a conversion, renovation and extension project undertaken with sustainability in mind. The Coach House is part of the historic fabric of Parkhill Estate, our client gave us a unique opportunity to repurpose an existing structure in a way that minimizes environmental impact while preserving a traditional building for future generations. Originally used for storing carriages and horses to service the main house on the estate, the property had fallen into disrepair. It has been transformed into […]

Limestone House, which involves the dramatic transformation and extension of a ground-floor flat in a Victorian detached villa into a contemporary 5-bedroom family home in a conservation area of Edinburgh, is the latest retrofit and restoration project in the city by London and Edinburgh based Archer + Braun. The client brief was to create a spacious, modern extension with open-plan living areas that seamlessly connected to the garden, while at the same time also preserving and enhancing the historic fabric […]