Old and New

Yesterday as part of our Adaptive Reuse course we visited St Pancras. We have all been there at least a few times but this time we were taken into the construction site of the new hotel. They are conserving and retrofitting the listed Victorian building. We read articles in preparation for the day describing the controversy surrounding the building. Ever since it was built it seems there has been debate over whether to save it or tear it down. Quite soon after it was built in the mid-late 19th century it was considered gaudy-- a complete disaster. Luckily the tides turned (a few times) and it is now being saved and adapted.

In full gear.... we were given a tour by a true expert on the building and by our professor, Richard Hill who has had a hand in the development of the new spaces.
(his firm is called Richard Griffiths Architects... http://www.rgarchitects.com/) for any of my architect friend readers!



















Today we went to our final series of lectures at the 20th Century society. We had three lectures by architects (and one engineer) They were all presenting "Heroic Conservation Projects." So each presented on important (usually listed) 20th century buildings that were conserved and in most cases "greened."

Possibly the most interesting presentation was given by Patrick Bellew who is a principle at Atelier 10 (a consultancy that does mostly engineering work on environmental design.)
Bellew also teaches at Yale and talked a lot about the Paul Rudolph building on campus where their design students work.
His firm updated the 1964 building by completely redoing the facade and improving the HVAC systems. The building became LEED Gold. It was really awesome to see such a great updated building.