‘It’s about quality of life’: Could a retrofit Birmingham house help fix the UK’s dire housing? | Build

toInk Road is home to a modest row of Victorian terraced houses in Ladywood, a deprived area within the city of Birmingham. But within one of these two, up and down, an internal revolution takes place.

At No. 33 Link Road, a property bought by community group Civic Square and named Retrofit House, it’s open week. Events include a series of talks, classes and performances – there’s a timetable pinned to the front door so you know when to head to the back bedroom to learn about live materials or to the garden for a door repair workshop.

It is also an opportunity for curious visitors to see works produced by researchers and designers through collaboration with local residents. From top to bottom, the house is filled with examples of retrofit ideas, often using environmentally sound materials like lime, clay, and straw. There are modifications on offer that improve energy efficiency, air quality, flood protection and encourage wildlife in a bid to combat climate change.

Of course, few visitors will put it that way. The local community is here to learn DIY skills, check out clay paint finishes (porous, non-toxic, locally made) and attend talks on donut economics and “free governance.” They want to lower their fuel bills and make their homes more comfortable.

As Aimee Corr, co-founder and director of Civic Square, says, “A lot of people here think net zero is a waste of time, or they’ve experienced previous government-run home improvement schemes that failed and don’t want to be disrupted. When we started talking to the local community about retrofitting, we realized we had to approach it from a different angle.”

Although retrofitting is widely believed to be a practical solution to diverse housing in the UK, successive governments have done their best to spread the ideas and funding. The adoption of flashy schemes such as the Home Upgrade Grant (Hug), the Local Authority Delivery Scheme (Lad) and the Warm Homes Scheme have not met the targets – even though the thermal efficiency of the UK housing stock is among the worst in Europe. These schemes are prescriptive or difficult to navigate, while the black mold caused by inept installation of cavity wall insulation under the ECO4 scheme has caused a national scandal.

If Civic Square and its partners can pull it off, it could make a real difference. Although it’s only been four months since they purchased Retrofit House, local involvement is promising. There is a growing national network called Retrofit Reimagined which is made up of neighborhood groups from Bristol, Cheltenham and Wessex who collaborate with organizations such as design practice Material Cultures to share skills and knowledge so that not only will the public make informed decisions about the retrofit solutions they want, but they will also be able to do the work themselves or find a suitably trained local builder. Retrofit House in Ladywood is not just a showroom, it is also a workshop where builders from the West Midlands gain experience working with natural materials and installing retrofits.

“As an architect, you are set up to be a professional consultant, but this project is not just about building performance,” says Samar Islam, partner at Material Cultures. “It is about quality of life, social value, environmental impact and what is important to the family. Looking at working through social value, it is not about how many people use the building but how much knowledge you can embed locally by turning everything into a learning opportunity. How many apprentices can you get? How many workshops can you run? And everyone is really hungry for this stuff.” It usually happens behind closed doors, which is crazy when you realize how many people want to see it.

To date, the Retrofit House program has been funded by charitable organizations such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Kaur’s advice is that if you have a good idea, now is a good time to go to charities with large endowments. “They can see what’s going on with reform and the far right and they want to step in and do something positive for society.”

Civic Square’s motto is “We may not have deep pockets but we have many hands.” The idea of ​​neighbors working together is poetic, but Kaur is also realistic. “We don’t think we can do it without outside help, but bringing skills and land back to the community is important.”

The organization is not opposed to working with local government in the future, but the idea is to use Retrofit House as a model of what can be achieved, a positive project that will help policy makers be bolder or change the rules of council procurement. Collaborate too early and Civic Square will default to current grant guidelines.

Also, says Kaur, “the local government doesn’t have the capacity to do that — they’re fed up with the problem of sorting the bins.”

If Birmingham Council wants some good community advice on this headache, there will probably be a workshop for that at Retrofit House.