Brief: London has many office buildings which are visibly spectacular and located in prime locations, but which are becoming increasingly unfit for use as contemporary offices. Efforts to refurbish them are costly and leave compromised spaces which can't compete with modern developments in terms of amenity, energy use and ultimately rental price.

Working with a full consultant team we developed a carbon costed feasibility study comparing light refurbishment, heavy refurbishment and facade retention for a scheme on Lincoln's Inn square.

The study highlighted trade offs from short term carbon saving against long term usability and desirability in the market. While initially more carbon intense to retain the facade and build a new timber framed scheme behind, the increased density of use and 200 year life span made it fundamentally more environmentally sound.