Heritage buildings Obstacle or opportunity

Heritage buildings: Obstacle or opportunity?While upgrading heritage buildings present many challenges, they can also drive innovation in design and engineering, and create the centrepiece of a new development, says Wood & Grieve Engineers’ Alasdair MacKerron.Many of Australia’s heritage buildings were constructed for uses that no longer exist today – factories that have shut up shop, banks and post offices that have gone online and railway stations that have long ceased shuttling passengers.The best way to conserve a building is to use it. Redundant buildings are vulnerable to decay and eventual demolition.”Heritage buildings have stood the test of time, and there is a value in that – both culturally and architecturally,” MacKerron (pictured), a senior structural project engineer with WGE, says.”The easiest thing may be to knock over an old building and replace it with a shiny new tower, but a heritage building can become the centrepiece of a development – one that creates atmosphere and character, attracts people and delivers a better long-term investment.” Perth-based MacKerron points to two West Coast heritage icons remade: the Perth GPO and Brookfield Place Perth.”The Perth GPO is a classic example of how heritage can add value. Installing a good quality office fitout ensures the building is used, but the real success is found on the outside. The work to activate the square has attracted new life,” he says.”At Brookfield Place Perth, the driver for the development is the tower behind, and that’s where most of the people are located. But the heritage buildings are at the heart of the precinct, and because it’s at such a human scale, you don’t see the tower.”The challenges of working with heritage buildings are many and varied but MacKerron says “there are things you can do to ensure the building is an attractive proposition in a competitive market”.And heritage buildings – constructed in a time before air-conditioning, with large windows, high ceilings and good thermal mass – are often ideal candidates for energy efficiency retrofits. “The challenge is very often working with modern techniques and materials to suit the way these buildings breathe, move, expand and contract.”MacKerron is inspired by two heritage upgrades in his home town of Edinburgh in Scotland.The Hilton Edinburgh Carlton, positioned on the Royal Mile, was once the city’s top department store. “Upgrading the building to a five-star hotel meant knocking every two rooms into one, picking apart how the building worked, and carefully planning new insertions to remove walls without affecting the structure,” he explains.The century-old Waverley Gate building, once the city’s general post office, is now eight floors of prime office space.’The challenge here was that the levels of the heritage windows didn’t suit the new floorplate requirements. Stepping the building back created a void around the floorplate, a plenum which helps with thermal performance and allowed natural light in. This innovative approach ticked lots of boxes including maximising the commercial outcomes.”The scale of requirements for sites have changed, especially in our inner-city areas, and a development of more than 20 storeys may be needed to release the value of the land on which it sits, MacKerron says. But by making best use of the heritage already there, “we can maintain the human scale and retain our connections with the built past.”Learn more about WGE’s capabilities.