Street by Street Retrofit: A Future for Architecture

For many years, it has been recognised that improving the energy performance of the existing housing stock is vital if energy demand is to be reduced to combat climate change. The art of retrofit is posited as a way forward beyond today’s weak pseudo-Modernist architecture - all that is left - the final echo of Modernism’s original utopian impulse.

Central to the book is the presentation of domestic street-by-street retrofit as an issue with technical, financial and societal dimensions. A holistic view of the complex, interacting factors that have held back any advance is interspersed with a historical account of retrofit’s faltering progress over the last 20 years. The crucial challenges that have been encountered are described, including the technological and human factors that urgently need to be addressed. It is suggested that the utopian instincts that propelled early Modernism can be redeployed in finding an approach to retrofit that will pave the way towards a politically engaged architecture of social purpose.

Street-by-Street Retrofit’s goal is to involve the creative imagination of designers and form an alliance with policymakers and many others in the business of urban improvement; it is intended for all these audiences.

Mike McEvoy studied at Cambridge prior to registration as an architect, then went on a postgraduate scholarship to Cornell, his PhD is from the Bartlett. He was in practice in the US and Canada, and for a decade with Arup Associates in London. Subsequently, he was Coordinator of Technical Studies at the University of Westminster; on the faculty at Cambridge and a Fellow Commoner of Downing College; and latterly, Professor of Architecture at the University of Brighton, where he led EU IFORE an Anglo/French 6.3million street by street retrofit programme (which is the background to this book). Previously, he had completed, and published, the outcomes of several funded research projects into low energy construction. He has written three other books on architectural technology: Architecture and Construction in Steel, External Components, and Environmental Construction Handbook.