Conservation

We apply best current conservation practice to historic buildings and sites, whether protected or not.

Sometimes these projects are about giving protection to intangible cultural heritage, as recognised in our Marshalsea Barracks work or our Railway Estate work. We develop appropriate actions closely with local communities, local authorities, heritage organizations, and other stakeholders to agree the best steps. Ensuring protection of historic buildings and sites can require desk research, collecting oral histories, physical repair and stabilisation, inventorising, curation and capturing the public imagination, making statutory submissions and assessment against normative building legislation, fire safety, carbon and other new standards. We lead diverse design teams in this process and can structure funding applications.

We also advise on adapting historic buildings for modern use or adapting the use of a protected structure.

A growth area to which we are committed is adaptive re-use of twentieth century sites and buildings.