Event Description

With efforts underway to accelerate international housing supplies, a hidden threat to our housing stock remains largely invisible: the looming loss of our existing housing to deterioration through lack of love and maintenance. Modernization and renewal of our existing housing supply is required at scale and requires a paradigm shift in thinking.

UK-based KCA and Canada-based ERA will showcase two case studies: Ken Soble Tower, Toronto and Kings Crescent Estate, London. We will outline our involvement in nation-wide roadmaps to retrofits at scale through Canada’s Tower Renewal Partnership, and KCA’s Retrofit Social Housing publication including typology-based case studies.

We will set out primary and universal challenges of Retrofit for multi-unit housing considering funding, regulation, and industry-readiness in direct comparison with US models.
We will present a series of roadmaps to multi-unit decarbonization:

• Systems: physical means, products, processes to enhance existing fabric, off-site fabrication and product innovation.

• Tactics: piloting, feedback loops, piggybacking on building safety, repairs and improvement programmes.

• Opportunities for growth: building rigour into the process to enhance efficiency and drive delivery, whilst allowing for nuance required for differing contexts.

• Human impact: how we incentivise change and address disruption within communities. Opportunities for enhancement, densification, education, engagement and resident involvement.

Speakers

Paul Karakusevic, BA (Hons) MArch RCA, RIBA, ARB, Founding Partner, Karakusevic Carson Architects

Ya'el Santopinto, OAA, FRAIC Principal, ERA Architects

­­Graeme Stewart, FRAIC, OAA, AAA, CAHP, OPPI, CIP, Principal, ERA Architects

Caroline Hull, B.Arch (Hons) Dip. Arch, RIBA, ARB, Associate Director, Karakusevic Carson Architects

Moderator: Gregory Fonseca, AIA, Past President, AIA UK; Director of Architecture, BDP

CES: Estimated 1 LU/ HSW for AIA Members

Speaker Bios

Paul Karakusevic founded Karakusevic Carson Architects to raise the architectural design standards and ambitions for the quality of the UK’s social and public housing.

Over the past 20 + years, he has worked alongside residents and local government to improve the design and delivery of truly affordable homes and neighbourhoods which reflect the needs of real communities; designing and crafting dwellings that give residents dignity and help to improve quality of life and chances for future generations. To date, the studio has completed 10 major London Council housing projects. Multi-award winning schemes which have provided exemplary homes and have advanced a new era of Public housing.

In 2017, Paul co-authored the book ‘Social Housing – Definitions and Design Exemplars’, published by RIBA and then in 2022, co-authored ‘Public Housing Works’, published by Lund Humphries; a book charting the last two decades of public housing design in the UK, told through the studio’s housing and masterplanning projects. In 2023, he co-authored ‘Retrofit Social Housing: A practical guide for local authorities & registered providers of social housing’.

Ya’el Santopinto is a Principal at ERA Architects, where she leads the deep retrofit and affordable housing practice. Ya’el is also the Director of Research and Partnerships at the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R), a non-profit organization advocating for supportive policy frameworks around the preservation of Canada’s affordable apartment housing supply, and leads research related to Tower Renewal initiatives to catalyze reinvestment and community building in apartment tower neighbourhoods. Ya’el has overseen the retrofit over 1,500 units of housing for not for profit and public housing providers including the ground-breaking Ken Soble Tower.

Graeme Stewart is a Toronto based architect and urban planner. Graeme is a Principal at ERA Architects and a founding director of the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R), an interdisciplinary urban research organization supporting policy and action toward more equitable and resilient urban regions. Graeme is a member of the Toronto Community Housing Design Review Panel and a regular lecturer in Universities in Ontario and abroad. He is also the co-editor of Concrete Toronto: A Guidebook to Concrete Architecture from the Fifties to the Seventies, and a recipient of the Jane Jacobs Prize for his ongoing work related to Tower Renewal.

Caroline Hull’s work focusses on estate renewal and refurbishment projects developed through integrated community engagement and co-design. Having developed expertise in this area, she has led the comprehensive, design-led retrofit of a large post-war housing estate in London, as well as pilot refurbishment studies of two 1960s large-panel-system (LPS) buildings at Broadwater Farm Estate in the London Borough of Haringey. In 2022, she led the retrofit study for Heritage Estates on behalf of one of the UKs larger housing associations.

Caroline is a fully qualified UK PAS2035 Retrofit Coordinator. In 2023 she co-authored the ‘Retrofit Social Housing’ publication with Paul Karakusevic, providing practical ideas and recommendations for retrofitting homes focusing on replicable construction details and architectural forms that exist in volume housing typologies commonly found in UK public housing.

Moderator: Gregory Fonseca is a practicing architect with 40 years of international experience. His diverse practice is evident with broad expertise in a variety of sectors, such as work place, urban regeneration, retail schemes, single and multi-family residential construction, for both large and small developers, corporate, government, non-profit, and private clients. Currently, he is the Director of Architecture in Urban Regeneration/Retail sector at BDP London, a global design-led practice. He is responsible for the design, direction, and management of multi-disciplinary teams delivering urban regeneration and mixed-use schemes for clients in the UK, Europe, Middle East, and China. 

Prior to BDP, Gregory was an Associate at Shepherd Robson, and founder of Mobius Design, a design-led practice, for 16 years in Washington, DC. He is a Past President and active board member of AIA UK, responsible for Continuing Education for Virtual Building Tours for the association. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the JF Kennedy Performing Arts Center in DC. His design credits include architectural awards for projects in the US and Europe, as well as furniture and artwork gallery exhibitions. His written work has been published in Hanley Wood for US projects and he has frequently contributed articles and thought pieces to ACROSS.