Groves-Raines Architects Studio wants to build up a portfolio of regeneration projects

How can a young practice develop skills in repair and renewal of traditional buildings while still designing in a modern idiom that pushes architecture forward? That’s the conundrum facing Groves-Raines Architects Studio (GRAS), a young practice set up two years ago as the adventurist avant-garde of established Edinburgh historic buildings specialist Groves-Raines Architects.

Gunnar Groves-Raines (yes, it’s a father-son thing) and Stuart Falconer met while study-ing at Strathclyde University, after which Falconer worked at BD 2006 Young Architect of the Year winner Nord.

Their first project is in fact their office. Flats in the upper levels of the property had been redeveloped, and the pair ran the refurbishment of the basement where their office is based.

Now they’re working on a feasibility study for updating a listed Glasgow church, several residential renovation projects, and are on the look-out for projects that will allow them to build their own design identity while also respecting the skills that are part of the practice’s heritage.

“We want to be progressive and forward- thinking, but also to learn from the experience of my father’s practice,” says Groves-Raines.

Malcolm Fraser met a similar challenge, and it has become the defining factor of his MFA practice — from the Scottish Poetry Library that made his name to the renovation of the HBOS headquarters building on The Mound.

Fraser’s definition of repair and renewal? “For us, it’s a combination of respect for the integrity of what is there, with an understanding that you cannot go back to that integrity.”

Their conversation takes place at Dovecot Studios, MFA’s latest refurbishment project. It’s a new gallery and studio complex for a weaving charity converted from Edinburgh’s Infirmary Street Baths, with a cross-subsidising development of six flats.

The project exemplifies MFA’s approach of working with rather than against the existing building. There is a neat correspondence between the building’s current and former uses, with the space-hungry looms now installed in the former pool area, while the boilerhouse chimney is now an extract vent for its passive stack ventilation.

“When we realised we could put the Lyon & Turnbull auction rooms into a grade A listed classical church — because an auctioneer at a dais is similar to a minister at the pulpit — that was another eureka moment, because you don’t have to kick the building to bits to make it work,” says Fraser. “To me, that’s primary. Some architects like a use that works against the building, because then they’ll be able to demonstrate how wonderful they are. But I don’t think that’s ethically or practically the right thing to do.”

In most cases, BD Masterclass acts as an introduction agency to two practices that have never met. But in this case, Fraser and Gunnar Groves-Raines have a shared history. Two decades ago, Fraser worked for Groves-Raines Architects, whose office was a renovated and converted castle, Peffermill House in East Lothian, that was also the family home.

“You were the wee scamp that ran about and sabotaged my bicycle tyres!” says Fraser.

Groves-Raines claims ignorance of this. “But I do remember you teaching me how to kill bluebottles with elastic bands,” he says. Fraser adds the troubling detail that Alan Dunlop [of Murray & Dunlop] was also party to the murder of innocent bluebottles.

Fraser attributes much of his love of traditional buildings from his time at Groves-Raines Architects. “I thought it was really cool to both care for the historic environment and make good, new buildings for it,” he says. From being Nick Groves-Raines’ protégé to mentor to his son’s practice, the wheel has turned full circle.

Inside track on refurbishment

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Gunnar Groves-Raines and Stuart Falconer of Groves-Raines Architects Studio put their questions on renewal projects to Malcolm Fraser of Malcolm Fraser Architects

Planning talk

Gunnar Groves-Raines: What’s your experience of working with planners on traditional buildings?
Malcolm Fraser: The advantage is that the focus switches from ordinary planning officers to conservation officers, people whose day-to-day task is thinking about the historic building environment, so you start the conversation from an understanding that the environment has evolved and adapted over the years.
GGR: Does minimal intervention help with getting planning?
MF: Yes, and we’re fortunate in that our stance towards the historic environment is similar to the ethical stance of historic building officers.
GGR: What do you do when the building contains historic materials but you have to attain modern standards on U-values?
MF: There’s always a traditional materials argu-ment. But at the Dovecot the new parts are zinc-clad — it’s a traditional material but it can be used in a plastic, modern way to enclose parts of the building. You are taking a material that’s present in the built environ-ment, but using it differently.
Stuart Falconer: There can be relaxations on disabled access for older buildings. How do you go about that?
MF: You’re also working with issues of reasonableness. Here, the railings around the gallery are wider than they should be. We argued that we’re now in a less onerous use — we don’t have kids running about in their swimming trunks. Apparently there was a recent case of a child jamming their head between some railings, so the health and safety people came back and we had to put in mesh.

Credit crunch

SF: Are there more openings for young firms in a downturn, or will smaller practices suffer?
MF: I hope the big, dumb projects take a tumble, so we might get more care in small repair and renewal projects in the private and public sectors. Government should build social housing, which used to be a great avenue for new practices to get work, because councils are less risk-averse than volume housebuilders. I’d like to think there will be oppor-tunities for young practices.
GGR: Unfortunately, we haven’t developed any links with local authorities.
MF: I don’t think anyone feels prepared. But in a recession, developers need to start taking more care, so it could be good news for small practices that are hungrier and innovative.
SF: In a downturn, is there more work in restoration rather then new-build?
MF: Not necessarily. People are improving rather than moving.

Design by committee

GGR: We’re working on a small, listed building to improve the quality of the spaces.
SF: It’s a client group of 20. How do you deal with clients where it's a case of "design by committee"?
MF: You need to demand that everything is filtered through one person or you end up with design by committee. With multi-headed clients, there’s a focus on what the building looks like. So we go back to first principles. At Holyrood [church], we located our discussion in the geometry of the church, extending that into the new part, bringing in light to reflect that geometry. When you talk about space, light and views, it takes the conversation away from what it looks like and we have a better dialogue.
SF: So you shift the terms of the conversation?
MF: If you’re always speaking to clients in terms of whatever technical aspect they’ve slapped on the table, they set the agenda. If you put the agenda down, you are leading, albeit listening and discussing. That’s how you achieve integrity in the project.

Contract jungle

SF: We’re trying to qualify as architects and need practical experience. How are new-build and restoration different in terms of running things on site?
MF: Building contracts are based on the assumption of new-build, so are not always relevant when repairing old buildings. If things go awry on site, the contracts don’t stand up — it can’t take on board the need to open something up to look at it, take it down, then put it back — which you need with a traditional building. So it’s vital to let it to a builder that knows about these things. But those builders’ tenders would need to be higher, while the tendering process makes you throw in a few makeweights to make the list long enough. If one of them gets the contract, you’re in trouble.
GGR: So how do you convince your clientto go with the more expensive contractor?
MF: You may convincea private client, but it’s difficult to convince a public client. We write a set of conditions into standard contracts about the need for the contractor to measure things and open up before making decisions. Legally, they can be challenged because they’re working against the spirit of the contract to define everything before it starts.

Back to first principles

GGR: An architect asked us, “How are you going to do any modern detailing?” But are the principles very different?
MF: They are. A traditional building is forgiving, it lets water in and then there’s so much air around it dries it out. Now we make hermetically sealed boxes so it’s more difficult to be a practice that does traditional and modern architecture. There ought to be far more discussion between modern and traditional buildings, and how they interface. In repair and renewal, we don’t do conjectural restoration, we have respect for what’s there. You don’t airbrush history.
GGR: We feel much the same. We’d never pretend something was there when it wasn’t, we want to be as honest as we can.
MF: You’re right not to be dogmatic. If a house fell down in the middle of a Georgian crescent, that’s not the moment to say “what would a modern Georgian architect do?” You have to be pragmatic about what works. To have principles to refer to is good.
SF: In terms of winning work, are repair and renewal and new-build two parallel tracks or do they criss-cross?
MF: You want them to criss-cross. We like to be seen as generalists, we think it opens things up. Because we bring different skills, we can bring more to every part of our practice.