A retrofit of one of Scotland’s famous tenements is tackling energy performance, improving health and wellbeing as well as preserving a vital legacy.
image for illustration: Glasgow Southside Tenement by GeorgeRob at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
…tenements were the ideal housing solution for the huge influx of urban manual workers to cities …
The Herald Scotland writes:
Tenements define urban city living in Scotland more than any other style of domestic architecture – and they were built to last, using locally sourced red, blonde and grey sandstone generally four stories high, although never taller than the width of the street.
Officially defined as ‘two or more related but separate flats divided from each other horizontally’, tenements were the ideal housing solution for the huge influx of urban manual workers to cities during the industrial revolution and Victorian era….
Fast forward 100 or so years and tenements remain a much-loved and substantial sector of the Scottish property market. But there is now a new dilemma: how to address climate change and improve the energy performance of traditional housing stock without compromising Scotland’s architectural heritage – a challenge exacerbated for tenements given the constraints of housing multiple family units under one roof.
Now a ground-breaking retrofit pilot project by John Gilbert Architects on a 120-year-old Glasgow tenement, has just been completed and it offers a genuinely innovative solution to the challenges of both climate change and fuel economy.
Located close to Queen’s Park on the south side of the city, 107 Niddrie Road..
Happy, healthier, and considerably wealthier thanks to the new low fuel costs, to say the tenants of these eight flats are delighted is the understatement of the year…
The elephant in the room, of course, is how will retrofit be paid for, and by whom?
Meanwhile, the Niddrie Road project shows what can be achieved, making it a well-deserved winner of the new Green Housing Category in the Herald Property Awards for Scotland 2023.
