When we talk about the adaptive reuse of old buildings, we often think of buildings from pre WW1 – romantic buildings from the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian era. But a large proportion of the UK building stock consists of vacant buildings dating from the fifties to seventies – the not so old, and not so loved buildings. 

This genre of buildings are generally not considered as 'attractive' as pre-war, heritage buildings, and there is a consensus to want to knock these down and start again. But left neglected, they will continue to erode. So how do we successfully modify them?

With their efficient and lean construction, they can be more difficult to modify and present unique challenges. But they also offer fantastic opportunities to save carbon.  

In this episode, Principal and lead of BDP's civil and structural engineering group, John Roycroft invites colleagues and fellow structural engineers, Victoria Martin and Chris Goodwin, along with George Ballard - building surveyor and structural engineer and chairman from GBG Group to explore the challenges these buildings bring when bringing them back to life. 

First we must determine how these buildings operate, their defects, and how we can work with the building... 

BDP's latest campaign, Innovation Applied, demonstrates how we harness innovation from within our industry to deliver exceptional results for our clients. The campaign delves into four main themes about innovative practice in the built environment, solving some of the industry’s most challenging issues such as achieving carbon emission reduction targets, increasing operational efficiencies, improving project performance, and best leveraging digital design.