New president wants architects to lead the way on reuse and find new purpose in a socially responsible mission
Muyiwa Oki made a clear statement of intent this week, by ensuring that one of his first engagements as RIBA president was chairing a townhall meeting entitled “Re-fit for Purpose” in the Lancashire coastal town of Fleetwood.
The event, held on Wednesday in the town’s former hospital, was a collaboration between the RIBA and The Prince’s Foundation. The meeting was intended to put a spotlight on the reuse agenda and its potential to drive grassroots regeneration. In Fleetwood, this agenda is centred on the re-purposing of the old hospital as a new community hub, to include a café and further education classes, alongside other services.
Designed by Decimus Burton, Fleetwood is a former seaside holiday destination and deep-sea fishing port. With most of the holidaymakers and fishing industry gone, and a nearby ICI factory long since closed, the town has faced economic and social problems that are familiar to many coastal communities.
The ward in which the redundant hospital sits is amongst the 5% of most economically deprived areas in the UK. On Wednesday it briefly became the focus of a lively discussion amongst leading figures from the public and private sectors around how reuse of redundant building can provide an impetus to delivering skills, investment, and hope.
Elsie Owusu, principal of Elsie Owusu Architects, opened the discussion with a description of how many “young people are becoming disenchanted with architecture”, arguing that by reorienting the profession towards reuse and combating climate change, a new generation might find the inspiration to engage with the built environment.
Architect and TV presenter George Clarke noted that while “a lot of people are passionate about regeneration, the fundamental question is how do we pay for it.” Highlighting the disincentives to reusing existing buildings in the tax system – specifically VAT on refurbishments – Clarke noted that “we have an economic system that is not geared up properly for regeneration and reuse”.
Making the case for no longer defaulting to new build, Sarah Robinson, the associate director for architecture and heritage at The Prince’s Foundation, argued that architects needed “to look at heritage in a different way… as everything that’s been given to us by the previous generation.”
The private sector was represented by Tim Heatley, co-founder of Manchester-based property development firm Capital & Centric. Heatley called out local authorities and consultants for too often advocating demolition of old buildings and failing to see their potential. “The great thing about existing buildings is that they create barriers and boundaries”, he said, before adding: “The really good creatives often do great work when they’re told what they can’t do.”
Owusu advocated for seeing retrofit of small-scale domestic buildings in particular as something that “could spark regeneration”. She shared her experience of working on community-led residential refurbishments in Brixton during the 1980s and highlighted the value such initiatives brought to the area through the utilisation of local tradespeople, and the role that they in turn played in training up a younger workforce.
Lord McNally, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords and chair of the Fleetwood Trust, closed out the discussion by drawing attention to the “passion and commitment” required from the local community to drive forward a project such as the regeneration of Fleetwood hospital. He said that the vision from the start had been to create an exemplar for community-led regeneration: “To create something where people would come to Fleetwood to see what we’ve done here.”
The event was accompanied by an exhibition of proposals for the former hospital by students from Oxford Brookes University. Teaching staff and architecture students from Brookes, Manchester and Lancaster were also in attendance.
A new MA course in Architecture and Adaptive Reuse was launched by Manchester School of Architecture in 2022, highlighting the growing emphasis within education on finding new uses for existing buildings. Welcoming the emphasis placed on reuse by Muyiwa Oki, Sally Stone, the programme leader on the course, observed that refurbishment “isn’t a last resort anymore.”
>> Also read: ‘Communicating the value of architecture’: why Muyiwa Oki wants to shift the debate on reuse
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