Foundry Lofts

Project Overview

The foundry had a riveted steel frame, a north-lit sawtooth roof and eleven metres of clear height — three things you cannot buy new at any price. The conversion adds eleven apartments as a lightweight timber structure standing inside the old shell, touching it in as few places as possible, so the original volume is still legible from the floor.

The best thing about the site

The sawtooth roof is the whole project. It gives every apartment even north light with no overheating and no blinds, and it is the reason the building did not need a single new window on the long elevations.

Creating Lasting Value

Retaining the frame and envelope avoided roughly forty per cent of the embodied carbon of an equivalent new build. The new insertions are dry-jointed and demountable, so in fifty years the next use can take them out without touching the 1920s fabric underneath.

Key Features

• Riveted steel frame retained and left exposed

• North-lit sawtooth roof reglazed in place

• Eleven apartments as a free-standing timber insert

• Dry-jointed, fully demountable new structure

• Around forty per cent embodied carbon avoided

• Original crane rails kept as a datum through the hall

• Shared ground-floor workshop and bike store

• Communal courtyard cut into the former casting bay