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Lively Legislative Entanglements: Designing for the Circular Economy through Biodiversity
Central Saint Martins, MArch Architecture, 2023-2024
An excerpt from the introduction of my thesis report, ‘The case for protecting nature in urban contexts and its surprising collaborative consequences’ :
In our context of construction sector complicity in climate and biodiversity breakdown, this enquiry proposes the hijacking of environmental protection legislation to prevent the wasteful demolition of buildings. Under Regulation 39 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010, it is an offence to ‘damage or destroy any place used by bats for shelter or as a breeding site’. Through integrating habitats for protected species, such as bats, into empty building stock, the embodied carbon of these structures can be safeguarded, allowing retrofit possibilities for other urgent spatial needs such as affordable housing. In this project, bats, birds and other creatures become collaborators in helping architecture transition to a circular economy.
Whilst bats in particular, and their environmental protections, have long been seen as a disruptor to architectural projects, this enquiry reframes and reinvigorates this relationship whereby Architects (and developers) must recognise their responsibility to building-reliant biodiversity and use their agency to contribute towards urgent nature recovery. The anarchic possibilities of this collaboration have recently been exercised in Norfolk where residents of an estate threatened with demolition have installed 130 bat boxes to slow the redevelopment.
Inspired by these creative actions, I have rooted my architectural enquiry in my hyper-local context of Hammersmith, West London. I began by observing, documenting, and celebrating the immense biodiversity present in Margravine Cemetery - a 16.5 acre, public space which was opened in 1868, and is home to over 300 trees, more than 20 species of birds and much other wildlife. The legal designation of this site as a Nature Conservation area of ‘Borough Importance Grade II’ by Hammersmith and Fulham Council safeguards this biodiversity from development.
Contrastingly, a few hundred metres northward stands evidence of the catastrophic environmental consequences of deregulated real estate development, in the form of the gargantuan additions to the Olympia exhibition halls, designed by Heatherwick Studios. Over 20,000 tonnes of new steelwork has been fabricated for this project which is twice the amount which was used to build the Shard. There has been an estimated 80,000 cubic metres of bulk excavation at the site, with 13 tower cranes and 10 hoists installed, including the biggest crane on a non-infrastructure project in the UK .
I have focussed my project proposals on a site immediately adjacent to this development, at 66 Hammersmith Road, where stands a seven storey concrete 80s office building clad in mirror glass curtain walling. This building will soon be demolished and turned into a Big Yellow Self Storage.
My enquiry suggests an alternative future for this building, whereby the anarchic construction of bat roosts triggers Regulation 39 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010, thereby halting plans for its demolition. With 10% of London office space empty, my retrofit proposals for transforming this workspace into housing and other creative uses could be reimplemented widely. I have suggested an addition to the Building Regulations which requires all new developments to incorporate habitats for protected wildlife species as a way to legally safeguard their embodied carbon from future demolition, and have written an ‘Approved Document U: Building for the Circular Economy through Biodiversity’ to suggest ways to integrate habitats for Bats in particular.
Whilst bats in particular, and their environmental protections, have long been seen as a disruptor to architectural projects, this enquiry reframes and reinvigorates this relationship whereby Architects (and developers) must recognise their responsibility to building-reliant biodiversity and use their agency to contribute towards urgent nature recovery. The anarchic possibilities of this collaboration have recently been exercised in Norfolk where residents of an estate threatened with demolition have installed 130 bat boxes to slow the redevelopment.
Inspired by these creative actions, I have rooted my architectural enquiry in my hyper-local context of Hammersmith, West London. I began by observing, documenting, and celebrating the immense biodiversity present in Margravine Cemetery - a 16.5 acre, public space which was opened in 1868, and is home to over 300 trees, more than 20 species of birds and much other wildlife. The legal designation of this site as a Nature Conservation area of ‘Borough Importance Grade II’ by Hammersmith and Fulham Council safeguards this biodiversity from development.
Contrastingly, a few hundred metres northward stands evidence of the catastrophic environmental consequences of deregulated real estate development, in the form of the gargantuan additions to the Olympia exhibition halls, designed by Heatherwick Studios. Over 20,000 tonnes of new steelwork has been fabricated for this project which is twice the amount which was used to build the Shard. There has been an estimated 80,000 cubic metres of bulk excavation at the site, with 13 tower cranes and 10 hoists installed, including the biggest crane on a non-infrastructure project in the UK .
I have focussed my project proposals on a site immediately adjacent to this development, at 66 Hammersmith Road, where stands a seven storey concrete 80s office building clad in mirror glass curtain walling. This building will soon be demolished and turned into a Big Yellow Self Storage.
My enquiry suggests an alternative future for this building, whereby the anarchic construction of bat roosts triggers Regulation 39 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010, thereby halting plans for its demolition. With 10% of London office space empty, my retrofit proposals for transforming this workspace into housing and other creative uses could be reimplemented widely. I have suggested an addition to the Building Regulations which requires all new developments to incorporate habitats for protected wildlife species as a way to legally safeguard their embodied carbon from future demolition, and have written an ‘Approved Document U: Building for the Circular Economy through Biodiversity’ to suggest ways to integrate habitats for Bats in particular.