Street-by-Street Retrofit

Mike McEvoy studied at Cambridge prior to registration as an architect, then went on a postgraduate scholarship to Cornell; his PhD is from the Bartlett. He was in practice in the United States and Canada and for a decade with Arup Associates in London. Subsequently, he was Coordinator of Technical Studies at the University of Westminster; on the faculty at Cambridge and a Fellow Commoner of Downing College; and latterly, Professor of Architecture at the University of Brighton, where he led EU IFORE an Anglo/French €6.3million street-by-street retrofit programme (which is the background to this book). Previously, he had completed, and published, the outcomes of several funded research projects into low-energy construction. He has written three other books on architectural technology: Architecture and Construction in Steel, External Components, and Environmental Construction Handbook.

List of Figures

Foreword: What If the Just Transition Began at Home?

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I: The State of the Art

1 Which Way to Jump?

Case Study: Energiesprong

2 The Carrying Capacity of the Planet

The Anthropocene and nature

Sustainable development, its origins and implications

Ecomodernism and the magic of technology

The climate crisis and the crisis of culture

Cultural juncture

Case Study: EU IFORE Innovation for Renewal

3 Re-evaluation of Modernism

Tipping point

Regulation

Alternative directions

The ecomodernist direction: Geo-engineering

Case Study: Parity Projects

4 Sustainable Retreat

Technology (alone) is not the answer

The future slowdown

The idea of progress

Modernism and the natural world

Architecture as a belief system

Case Study: Link Road, Birmingham

5 Caring Architecture

The future role of the architect will be to build sparingly

Building little implies making good what we already have i.e. retrofit

Part II: A Brief History of Retrofit

6 Size of the Problem

The energy case for retrofit

Problem #1 Determining the Outcomes

7 Pre-requisites for Retrofit

Retrofit at the urban scale

Retrofit origins

The 40 per cent house

Problem #2 Insulation

8 Drivers for Change

Problem #3 Overheating

9 Home Truths

40 per cent house to achieving zero

Problem #4 Ventilation

10 Anticipating the Green Deal

Problem #5 Airtightness

11 Retrofit Comes to a Halt

Problem #6 Renewables

12 Measuring Success: 80% Reduction and ‘Retrofit for the Future’

Low carbon Britain

Problem #7 The occupants

13 The Progress of Retrofit

Retrofit and performance

Architects as retrofit leaders

Architectural skills required?

Part III: Towards a New Utopia

14 The Art of the Imagination

Retrofit realigned

Retrofit and utopia

15 The Problem of Theory

The politics of architecture

Capitalism and creative destruction

Modernism and radical politics

16 Architecture’s Very Uniquely Compromised Position

The roots of Modernism: Hannes Meyer and the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit)

The hidden aspects of consciousness, the uncanny, Gothic and Surrealism

Urban ecology

17 Echoes from the Past: Herbert Marcuse

Society as a work of art

Retrofit as the representation of society as a work of art

Marcuse’s utopia of hope, utopia as a realisable dream

Retrofit as subversive art

18 Retrofit and Architects: A Future

Architects and innovation – Our utopian mission

Architecture or extinction

Index