Making Retrofit Work: Low Carbon, People Centred Design for the Anna Freud Centre Campus

Synopsis

The presentation will start with an introduction to the work of the Anna Freud Centre; straddling clinical services, short stay school, post graduate study and charity workspace focussed on children’s mental health issues. From this we will explore the design process and completed building (winner of a 2021 Design in Mental Health Award) to create a new shared campus for these diverse activities and the efforts undertaken with renowned Interior Designer Ilse Crawford to deinstitutionalize those interiors and make a place, or series of places, that truly feels like a home.

Retrofit: Carbon-in-Use
Having spent the subsequent period since completion of the scheme investigating the demands of low carbon retrofit across current healthcare, higher education and commercial projects, I will revisit lessons learnt from the reuse of the Edwardian Chocolate Factory and what we might do differently now in the era of more widely adopted Enerphit and LETI Standards.

Timber Structures: Embodied Carbon
Focussing on the new-build element of the scheme’s innovative composite engineered timber and slimline precast concrete structural system and having moved into a time of widespread embodied carbon measurement, I will discuss what advantages are inherent in maximising the use of organic materials in construction, particularly within the constraints of the new Building Safety Act.

Where Next: Whole Life Carbon
Bringing together the above into a Whole Life Carbon narrative; Where next for minimising detrimental carbon impact of the planet’s atmosphere? And how might that influence design for mental healthcare?

This is an initial precis subject to development and I would welcome any suggestions how better to integrate with, or complement, your themes and/or programme.