Isle of Dogs, London
Philip Kassanis as associate director at Mountford Pigott
2007-8
The Old Forge is a grade 2 listed workshop in the centre of a new mainly residential development occupying most of a street block. As the overall project got under way it became clear that the task of implementing the listed building consent was such a specialist and time-consuming task that it couldn’t be handled by the team alongside the new build. I was brought in as project architect for this.
The challenges were as difficult as they come in conservation work and included: inadequacy of the listed building consent requiring 6 further listed building consents and several further planning consents; how to integrate new materials and construction methods where original element is no longer repairable; extreme structural safety issues including new structure designed to be sympathetic; extreme conditions of building movement and out of alignment walls requiring huge ingenuity to install a new roof and guttering; specialist sampling and production of conservation mortar.
