Building for Reuse
Last week, Elliott Wood and Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) brought together built environment professionals from across the South West to talk all things reuse.
Using One Portwall Square – now home to the Society Building Bristol – as our shared starting point, AHMM’s Cormac Farrell and Elliott Wood’s Gary Elliott explored how attitudes to reuse have evolved, the thinking behind some of our recent projects, and imagined what the building could become in a future life.
Over the last decade, reuse has shifted from a niche ambition to common sense. Adapting what already exists is now a natural starting point rather than the exception. Both practices have played a role in that shift, including at Tower Hamlets Town Hall, where we worked together to transform the former Royal London Hospital into a new civic centre.
How imagination unlocks reuse
The value of working with existing buildings isn’t only about cutting carbon; it also pushes us to think more creatively. It demands a respect for a building’s character while finding potential for it to support entirely new uses.
Gary spoke about why imagination matters – not only in design, but in helping clients and project teams see what’s possible. Constraints of an existing structure can be challenging, yet they often unlock the most inventive engineering ideas.
He shared a few recent examples of finding new opportunities for reuse, including achieving a 41 percent increase in NIA by jacking existing floors at 20 Giltspur Street, and reusing materials from a demolished building at 30 Duke Street St James’s, where recycled Portland stone, glass cullet and steel all form part of the new structure.
Designing for today or tomorrow?
One of the central dilemmas we debated was whether to design for every conceivable future, accepting greater upfront carbon costs, or to pursue the most minimal intervention possible, to conserve embodied carbon. It’s a question without a simple answer, and one that sits at the heart of how our industry will evolve.
The audience posed brilliant questions, from end-users asking about sustainability credentials to look for in their office buildings, to designers discussing how to introduce reuse earlier and more confidently with clients.
It was exactly the kind of open, curious debate we hoped to spark, and a great foundation for future events together at Society Building Bristol.
About Society Building Bristol
Society Building Bristol is the third in the Society Building network of collaborative spaces to inspire ideas and action across the built environment.
Created with AHMM in their One Portwall Square studio, it’s a place to think, question, make and collaborate beyond traditional industry siloes.