Highlights from AUDE's Legacy Buildings Guide

We can all agree that estates teams in the HE sector are facing unprecedented challenges -  escalating financial pressures, net zero targets and growing regulation v a continual need to manage and invest in the campus and its facilities to retain and attract the best staff, students and stakeholders - to name a few! 

To help combat this uncertainty, and to provide guidance and reassurance, AUDE (authored by Arup) has recently produced its Legacy Buildings Guide (“Legacy” here means buildings constructed between 1945 and 1999).  Please read this invaluable Guide in its entirety – what follows are some non-exhaustive, high-level thoughts only.

Some observations:

• Not least from financial, sustainability and wider environmental perspectives, the Guide looks at prioritising the reuse and retrofitting of legacy buildings and encourages some different thinking:  capital investment doesn’t always need to mean new builds;
• Until relatively recently to be, and remain, competitive, a rolling construction programme of new buildings was the main strategic focus of a lot of estates master planning, largely funded out of cash reserves.  This is often no longer achievable or desirable – interestingly, the Guide says the majority of buildings the sector needs are already built.  As with any approach, there are potential advantages and challenges with pursuing a retrofit and reuse, rather than demolish and rebuild, approach.  It’s not a binary case of always taking one approach or the other.

Possible advantages of reusing and retrofitting legacy HE buildings

• Conservation of resources (the report refers to “environmentally driven development”);
• Rapid technological evolution and innovation, and open-mindedly embracing this, can really advance retrofitting projects;
• Leads on the HE sector’s, and wider society’s, commitment to a more sustainable future;
• A cost effective alternative to delivering new construction: reduced upfront costs lower ongoing maintenance expenses;
• Positive social implications (most universities have charitable objectives after all!):  retrofitting/reusing can preserve the cultural and historic fabric of the campus and engage and inspire the academic and wider community;
• Encourages greater collaboration: the report says collaboration between architects, engineers, sustainability experts and the wider university is key to successful retrofitting projects;
• Evolves with the times:  post-Covid, students’ expectations have shifted further – they’re even more digitally dependent and expectant, often studying and learning via a hybrid model, with a growing environmental awareness and expectation;
• Helps towards meeting tough net-zero targets:  retrofitting can significantly cut embodied carbon (as opposed to demolishing and reconstructing) and, as part of a wider decarbonisation trajectory, operational carbon contributions can decrease;
• Cost:  there’s pricing uncertainty in construction materials.  Using as much existing materials as possible can be financially beneficial;
• Time: retrofitting is often faster than a whole new build;
• Catalyst: a significant refurbishment scheme can act as a catalyst for a wider decarbonisation plan. AUDE provides really helpful and detailed further guidance on what a plan may look like and need to consider.

Tellingly, AUDE members said poor energy efficiency and under-utilisation were the two main issues with legacy buildings. The opportunity to help meet net-zero targets (by 2050) was, according to AUDE members, the biggest reason for retrofitting, rather than demolishing or rebuilding.

Possible challenges with a retrofit/reuse-first approach

• Unexpected (structural) issues, resulting in more cost and possible delay.  According to an AUDE members’ survey, cost and funding were the biggest blocks to retrofit;
• Complying with modern standards, expectations and regulation in an older framework scenario;
• Retrofit/reuse isn’t always desirable or possible: the Guide acknowledges that it’s not “retrofit only”, but “retrofit first” – decisions should be contextual, based on evidence, consistent data and objective thinking.  

The Guide provides much needed further detail on what “retrofit” actually means and the varying degrees of what it may look like.  It urges a facts-based approach when considering a retrofit programme.  Some of the advantages and considerations traditionally associated with a new-build approach also apply to master planning with a reuse/retrofit strategy at its centre:

• Retaining and attracting staff and students;
• Quick project turnaround;
• Adaptability/change of use;
• Value;
• Delivering upgrades to occupied buildings;
• Potential for a smoother planning journey;
• Managing existing building risks;
• Enhancing an institution’s reputation and desirability by putting sustainability at its core.

Strikingly, the report sets out how far-off the sector is in meeting its net-zero/embodied carbon targets: between 2018 and 2022, embodied carbon emissions reduced by less than 25% of the amount needed. Between 2005 and 2006 and 2020 and 2021, 59% of UK universities failed to meet a 2010 sector-led carbon reduction target to reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions by 43%.  At the very least, in this context alone the Guide makes compelling reading.  

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