Rethinking Housing Refurbishment

The BRE is starting to take refurbishment seriously with a range of nine demonstration projects rethinking different building typologies - back-to-back, semi detached, Victoria villas and interestingly for Project Cottesmore - terraced housing. Some of these projects are being undertaken in partnership with Housing Market Renewal projects and some with the Princes Trust. They all look very interesting, albeit with a significant overlap with many of the challenges being addressed by the Retrofit for the Future programme, and often with the same design teams. While the focus does appear to be different with regard to the use of technologies combined with traditional building skills and crafts, I can't help wonder if this isn't just an indicator of the change within the construction industry and the lack of new construction.