Retrofitting a heritage building into a community asset
Club 103
Location
Union Street, Plymouth, UK
Clients
Nudge Community Builders
Status
Under Construction
In September 2022 Nudge bought Club 103 with the support of a local business and grant funding from Power to Change. The buildings were in a poor state, so we supported Nudge in developing a community focussed process that meant securing parts of the building, and working collaboratively with a contractor to get local people involved.
“For ten years it had been a big, grey row of buildings in increasingly bad disrepair and having a negative impact on the street. That is not OK - we need buildings to be used, create opportunities, and be useful and loved by future generations. So, that is starting to happen now they are owned by the community…”
Nudge Community Builders
Getting going now
Nudge and Incremental share the same ideology of getting started now and testing, in parallel to long term planning and preparations.
While we were supporting Nudge to secure funds, get statutory permissions, design the internal partitions, and ensure the building upgrades balanced energy performance and practicality, Nudge got on with:
Giving the front a colourful new look, with local portraits and the ‘Making Change’ message because we know it will make the street feel different for people walking by.
Organising a volunteer group that steadily sorted the piles of waste materials inside the building for removal or reuse.
Closed off part of the site for a street side temporary “Museum Of Here”, that displayed some of the found objects and provided an opportunity to reminisce, share your stories, and add to the project.
Partial Occupation of the basement of the building for a community owned mushroom growing enterprise - The City Farm
Minimum Viable Product
As Laurie Baker used to say “Trim your drawings, staff, equipment, travel, paper and expenses” - we have worked with Nudge to develop a model of architectural creation that steps away from the Industry Standard procedures, to make a process that better serves clients that are trying to do more with less.
As part of this, we did not follow the RIBA plan of work, and instead set our own steps. This process has enabled Nudge to commence work quickly on site and achieve a lot at a fraction of the cost of other projects.
1 - Spatial Layout + Routes Feasibility
2 - Conceptual Vision Sketch
Existing Photographs by Dom Moore
