Affordable Social Housing – Retrofit
London Borough of Newham
Cayford was appointed as lead architect for the retrofit of social housing for the London Borough of Newham; a pair of dilapidated 30 year old buildings were renovated to near Enerphit standard. Newham are engaged on an ambitious replacement of their housing stock with new-build passivhaus; however due to existing infrastructure this development had to be retained & renovated.
Key Outcomes
This is an exemplary project to show how to retrofit existing poor quality buildings into highly comfortable residences for the social rental market. In addition to lower energy bills, the construction uses much less embodied energy than new-build.
Our Approach
We coordinated the design process in conjunction with the specialist consultant team. A key challenge was to keep the project affordable so we worked hard to design around the existing structure to minimise the structural changes to the building.
Our Process
We redesigned the spaces to have a mix of flat types to NDSS (Nationally Described Space Standards). The planning requirements required us to use IWI (Internal Wall Insulation), which due to stringent fire safety compliance required advanced thermal modelling in WUFI to manage the moisture balance of the wall construction. We collaborated with Guarda Landscape for the landscape and external works design.
The Results
The project is now complete, providing 16 comfortable and cheap to run homes for the social rental sector.
- Customer London Borough of Newham
- Field Residential
- Location East London
- Year 2021
Cayford Design was engaged to renovate a dilapidated social housing development for the Local Council [Newham] where I was responsible for the development and delivery .. Paul and his team are excellent to work with, are extremely technically knowledgeable, creative and committed to doing a great job, despite some difficult constraints of the project. Paul is a good design team leader and worked well with the wider design team and consultants. I was pleased with the professionalism and quality of customer service from the outset. Gaurav Sarin Client Project Lead, LB Newham Regeneration & Housing Delivery