The practice had been working out of our home office for ten years and we had been looking for new workspace of around 50-60m², both to give us the space to expand and also to give the business a public frontage. 

Location, Size and Price

We were introduced to a property in Edinburgh’s Abbeyhill by Galbraith, which was a perfect fit for us in terms of location and size, but it was clear from the outset that it required a lot of improvement and building work. 

Much of our work as Edinburgh Architects involves a variety of scales of commercial and residential refurbishment, including retrofit, so the project was familiar territory for us.

Not such a blank canvas

The property had been last used as an office, but had been subdivided from its original layout into a number of small rooms with lowered ceilings and had a windowless basement with rot and damp. 

The ground floor windows were single glazed and there was no thermal insulation to floors or external walls. 

Heating and hot water was run from a 20 year old gas boiler which had no thermostatic controls.

Design transformation

The design proposals were to open up the ground floor to return it to its original layout and ceiling heights, with a large front office and a smaller back office. 

This exposed the original decorative cornice and allowed us to use the fanlight above the front door again. 

We opted for fitted desks and shelving to the front office make the best use of the space (and because we really liked how it looked). 

The rot and damp in the basement meant that a full strip out was required at this level, taking the wall finishes back to bare stone and brick and the floor back to the original concrete slab.

Maximise energy efficiency 

As part of the refurbishment and retrofit, we wanted to maximise the energy efficiency of the office, to reduce running costs, reduce the environmental impact and to stay comfortable and warm! 

To achieve this, the main ‘shop front’ window was replaced with a large doubled glazed unit and the damaged entrance area and back window were replaced with double glazed and draught sealed doors and windows.

 

Insulate, insulate, insulate

The external walls of the office are stone and could not be insulated externally. 

To address the damp problem, the basement walls and floors were lined internally with a cavity drain tanking membrane. 

The inside faces of the external walls were then lined with 45 x 70 treated timber framing, 70mm PIR insulation and composite insulated plasterboard. 

This insulation build up is not always suitable for insulating stone walls, but worked well in this case.

The basement floor was framed in timber above the new tanking membrane, with 70mm PIR insulation between the framing and a new chipboard deck finishing one step up from the original basement level, so that the original staircase could be kept. 

The timber joists to the ground floor of the back office were loose and rotten in some areas, so these were lifted and relaid with 150mm of new Rockwool insulation between the joists, held in place with a new breather membrane to improve air tightness.

Reducing landfill through reuse

More than 50% of landfill waste in Scotland comes from construction, and we wanted to reduce the amount of waste coming from these building works. 

In order to do this, we set aside the timber framing from the strip out that was in good condition, and reused this as rough framing in the new work. 

New doors within the office were either re-used from the property, or salvaged – in this case we got two of the doors from Glasgow Architectural Salvage. 

We re-used the kitchen and microwave from the old office and built these back into the new kitchen and we used offcuts from the kitchen worktop for the vanity joinery in the shower room.

Using available light

The lighting to the original office used a mixture of halogen and tungsten bulbs and these were replaced with energy efficient LED lighting to suit the new office layout, which is around 5x as efficient. 

The original ‘pavement light’ windows to the basement, which had been covered up, were also reinstated with new double glazed panes to bring natural light into the basement.

Think Electric 

Rather than replace the old gas boiler, we opted to have the gas supply removed and use electricity for heating and hot water. 

The cost of electricity by unit is currently around 4x the cost of gas, but having thermally insulated the property, our heating energy demand is relatively low and our monthly electricity bill is around £200 in mid-winter and around £35 in the summer. 

Switching to electricity-only also avoided the capital cost of a new boiler, a second monthly standing charge and the associated carbon emissions.

Hybrid building

The building works were carried out as a hybrid arrangement, with AJB Building and Joinery doing the ground floor and the basement being done as a self-build, which led to a busy six months! 

We obtained funding from Business Energy Scotland for some of the energy efficiency improvements. This was a mixture of grant and loan and was a difficult application process, but ultimately worth it.

How long did it take?

The overall process took around nine months, starting with the survey, design, Statutory Consent applications (Building Warrant and Planning Advertising Consent), building works and then fit out. It has given us a comfortable, sustainable and attractive (we think!) workspace with low running costs and we love working in it. 

We can help with your retrofit

If you’re considering a residential or commercial refurbishment, retrofit, or new build in Edinburgh or Central Scotland, our team can help guide you from design through statutory consents to completion. 

We specialise in projects between £100,000 and £5 million, creating sustainable, cost-efficient, and beautiful spaces. Please get in touch!