What’s working — City living

Glastonbury house, westminster

Citywest homes

Project

Many developers are marketing city apartments as the ideal living environment for young professionals, but Westminster council’s arm’s-length management organisation CityWest Homes has a very different tenant base at Glastonbury House. Occupants of the 22-storey, 1960s built block are predominantly aged 65-plus, and housed in 80 studio apartments, 80 one-bed apartments and two maisonettes.

The building was fundamentally in good condition but required updating, and this prompted a more radical approach, designed by architect Cole Thompson Anders, an early proponent of intelligent and green design principles. Also working on the project, which has just been completed following a 48-week programme, were project manager Mouchel Parkman, main contractor Wates Living Space, structural and services engineer WSP, cost consultant Franklin + Andrews, landscape designer Arup and technology consultant i&i.

The brief

Although Glastonbury House did not suffer the problems of many 1960s tower blocks, its building services were obsolete. Refurbishment was designed to bring homes above the Decent Homes standard and to improve environmental performance to an EcoHomes very good rating. Under its intelligent and green approach, called Integer, the architect concentrated on incorporating intelligent building controls and data systems as well as low and renewable energy. Works were carried out with tenants in situ.

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The block has been fitted with eco-features: 2.5/4 litre dual-flush toilets, flow restrictors to basin taps and shower heads, rainwater harvesting to water the block’s gardens, photovoltaic panels and a sedum roof. Old gas-fired boilers at the top of the building have been retired from service and the block connected to Pimlico’s district heating system.

Most of the green technology for the building was easily sourced, says David Wriglesworth, project architect from Cole Thompson Anders. “Using natural materials is second nature to us and items like water flow restrictors are readily available and cheap.”

Not all of the environmental aspirations for the block have been realised, however. The architect’s original designs included a wind turbine on the roof. The base for the turbine has been installed but not the turbine itself, as the client decided against it as one of a series of cost-trimming measures. Wriglesworth explains: “We originally costed the project at £12m, but it had to be reduced to £10m.”

Tenants should derive tangible benefits in reduced energy costs – a display in the block’s entrance shows how much energy and CO2 the photovoltaic panels are saving. There is no record yet of energy savings, but water metering has already shown water use has been halved. Ground-floor community rooms have been refurbished and a redundant boiler room at the top of the building has been transformed into a communal “sky lounge”, with panoramic views. Apartment balconies previously rendered unusable by high winds and roosting pigeons have been turned into spaces that can be used all year round with the addition of a sliding glazing system that also provides solar warming to the lounge.

The block’s intelligent home control (IHC) wiring system and flow switches on the water pipes have the potential to alert the scheme manager to unusual use of lights or water that could prompt a care visit and save a life.

A new telephone exchange and data/TV cabling have given each apartment the capability for warden call, free telephone calls to homes within the block and viewing the entrance’s CCTV security system on television screens.

Leading up to the major works, about 30 homes in the block were allowed to stay empty. These were refurbished and linked to new services first to serve as “hotel flats” allowing tenants to be decanted on site. Simon Underwood, business unit director of Wates Living Space, says working around residents was the contractor’s biggest challenge: “Tenant liaison and communication was a major issue for us. We had an open-door site office and a resident liaison officer.”

Wriglesworth admits: “There are not many inhabited blocks that have work this major carried out on them.”

What is worth repeating

The architect intended this project to be a model for further tower block refurbishments. The practice is looking to provide student accommodation using the same approach – in particular, use of void flats as “hotel flats” and building an external services riser.

One point worth making

The refurbishment work was difficult for the residents to live with David Wriglesworth, Cole Thompson Anders.

Products used:

Low-flush toilets: IDO Trevi
Balcony glazing system: Solarlux SL25
Photovoltaic panels: Solar Century
Sedum roofing: Erisco Bauder

Parklands, Kirkby

LPC Living

Project

The former Roughwood Heights estate of four tower blocks in Kirkby, five miles from Liverpool city centre, provided the raw material for LPC Living’s Parklands. The developer opted to retain two of the tower blocks and refurbish them to provide 160 apartments, ranging from 467ft2 one-bedroom units to two-bedroom duplexes and 990ft2 penthouses. The other two blocks were demolished and replaced with 40 new two- and three-bedroom mews-style townhouses.

All homes are for market sale. Working alongside LPC are architect Leach Rhodes Walker, main contractor Livesey Group, structural engineer Wilde UK and services consultant MM&A. The scheme has just reached completion following a 20-month programme. In addition to the main scheme, LPC is refurbishing three adjacent blocks of low-rise housing to provide one-bed apartments for market sale.

The brief

LPC has specialised in taking decaying urban social housing estates and making them into marketable homes for first-time and younger buyers through the attractions of low sales prices, contemporary design and amenities on site such as gyms.

Roughwood Heights was blighted and had been considered a candidate for wholesale demolition before the private sector spotted its potential and LPC won the site. The developer did not want the scheme to be entirely apartments for singles and couples. Paul Archibald, project manager with LPC Living, says: “They [the tower blocks] were in a pretty poor state of repair, vacant and boarded up, but we decided to keep two and replace two to get the right sort of mix of accommodation on the site. We wanted to create a wider mix of properties.”

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The retained tower blocks have been given more than a superficial makeover. Inside the towers, the walls and living space have been radically remodelled to transform utilitarian council flats into luxury duplexes. New steel frame penthouses have been constructed on top of the towers and communal facilities, in the form of a gym and a launderette, have been provided at the base. Archibald says: “The constraints come from working within an existing building. It is such an unusual thing to do that the whole process is full of challenges.”

New homes are built from timber frame with brick, render and western red cedar-clad exteriors. The towers have simply had their brickwork cleaned and render and timber has been added to the elevations. As the homes are being sold to young buyers on limited incomes, the developer has taken into account the need to control service charges.

Archibald says: “For maintenance works on tower blocks, you can be talking about the cost of bringing elevated work platforms on to site, so you have to go for as low-maintenance finishes as possible.”

The developer’s biggest innovation on the scheme has been in trialling a new approach to utilities. Instead of simply taking power from a supplier in the usual way, it has provided the substation, sourced the power from its chosen supplier – British Gas – and is selling it on to the residents. Archibald explains: “We are not doing this for the profit. We have yet to see how it works out, but we should be covering our costs. We were advised to do this to give us better control over utilities because in the Liverpool area, as in many other parts of the country, there have been big problems with utility supplies. We have still experienced some problems with connection, but we can’t believe that it would have been any better using the conventional route.”

Apartment sales prices started at from £79,950 inclusive of car parking, while townhouses start at £110,000. LPC reckons it will sell most of its homes to owner occupiers and says the average age of its first-time buyer is eight years below the national average at 26. It runs special sales initiatives for its target market: one such initiative at Parklands has involved making some homes available to local first-time buyers living or working in Kirkby.

The houses at Parklands have also succeeded in the developer’s objective of attracting family buyers.

What is worth repeating

LPC is aiming to repeat its approach to utilities.

One point worth making

By providing the substation we have done as much as possible to bring utilities within our control, but we still cannot control connection, Paul Archibald, LPC Living

Products used:

Power supplier: British Gas
Timber frame: Chandos Timber Engineering
Sanitaryware: Villeroy & Boch

Abito, Salford

Abito

Project

The Abito scheme in the Greengate regeneration area between Salford and Manchester is the first product from Ask Developments’ specialist economy apartment offshoot, also called Abito. The debut scheme comprises 256 apartments in a nine-storey building with ground-floor retail space, and is reaching completion after an 18-month build programme.

Working with Abito are architect BDP, contractor Carillion, project manager Cre8 Management, cost consultant Baker Hollingworth and structural engineer TWS.

The brief

Abito was conceived to bring urban homeownership within the reach of more young people. Managing director Les Lang explains: “Everyone thinks city-centre living is for young professionals, but in fact they are excluded from owning a home by price.”

The company set the target of producing an apartment with a sales price some 15-20% lower than the average new one-bed apartment. To deliver that price saving, the company looked to efficient build technology and compact design.

BDP director of architecture Gavin Elliott says: “We started virtually with a blank sheet of paper. The brief was to come up with a generic apartment design, then it was prototyped and tested.”

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Prototyping allowed the developer to iron out some glitches. Lang says: “There were 10 or 12 changes we needed to make.” A typical apartment has 355ft2 of space, which is small, but not as small as it could have been, Lang points out: “We looked at some 250ft2 apartments on the market, but we didn’t want to develop homes that small. We did not want the flats to be like prison cells.” Apartments have 3.3m floor to ceiling heights to add volume to the space.

Each apartment has a central services pod, which contains a bathroom, a utility cupboard, a kitchen and a wardrobe. The pod is made from precast concrete and is largely, but not entirely, fitted off-site. Elliott says the pod is a clear space-saver: “We worked closely with an interior designer – who is a big fan of the designer Joe Colombo – who came up with the idea of a compact module that things pull out of. There is a lot of dead space in a home that doesn’t get used, so we have simply scrunched down that dead space. If you can make something small look big, that is the ultimate.”

White goods in the kitchen are all standard items, rather than specially designed smaller components. Lang says it would have been easier to purpose-design fittings, but there was an important reason for not doing so. “We didn’t want to store up problems and leave owners struggling to find an oven to fit the kitchen in 10 years’ time.”

The pod sits in the insitu tunnel-form concrete shell of the building, tunnel-form construction being chosen to maximise repetition and economy. The developer has not skimped on design to deliver economy: the block is clad in unitised curtain walling, each apartment has its own balcony and at the centre of the triangular shaped development is a courtyard with PVC tented roof. BDP’s Elliott says: “Rather than have the courtyard exposed to the elements, the tented roof provides rain protection and for escape purposes the courtyard is still classed as an external space.”

Many of the scheme’s challenges came from bringing a new concept to market. The microflat has been much debated but few schemes have made it on to site, for reasons including the difficulty of making schemes stack up financially and of winning planning approval. Lang says planners favour Abito’s emphasis on owner occupation, adding: “There is a planning issue in creating an environment that is dead at weekends. That is unappealing in planning terms.”

The developer limited investor buyers by keeping the two lowest floors for owner occupiers only. Lang says homes have hit their target market, owner occupiers including young nurses and air stewards. Selling prices started at £85,000 to £115,000, with many buyers getting financial help from parents.

Lang explains: “One early purchaser wanted to come back to view the flat with his mum because he was borrowing the deposit from his parents. By now we must have shown around 20 mums around the scheme.”

The Abito concept is being transferred to other sites around England: Abito has a second scheme on site in Salford and plans to bring its brand of low-cost homes to London and Bolton. As a result, de-briefing on the first project has been essential.

Lang says the company has had to go through a learning curve on construction and is tweaking apartment layout for the second scheme, cutting down on wardrobe capacity to make the bathroom big enough to take a bath rather than a shower.

What is worth repeating

The Abito concept will be repeated. Lang says: “We want to take this right across the country, not only to the big cities, but also to some of the bigger towns.” BDP’s Elliott believes the model is applicable to other types of project, such as affordable housing.

One point worth making

The people who think these apartments are small tend to be in their mid-50s and upwards. They are making judgments based on their own lifestyles, Les Lang, Abito

Products used:

Cladding: Schüco
Services pods: Rasselstein