ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses approaches to the retrofit of Victorian houses in order to understand better their architectural implications and ambitions. It identifies certain key approaches among retrofit projects, grouping these under sub-headings: ‘new meets old’, ‘new matches old’, ‘layers of change’, ‘living retrofit’ and ‘radical transformations’. Although energy-efficiency needs to be improved, there are also many lessons to be learnt from Victorian houses in terms of sustainability and durability. For instance, typical Victorian terraced housing achieves a compact urban form – enabling good pedestrian and public transport connections – while at the same time providing gardens and suiting the single occupancy of a house to which many aspire. Victorian houses have also been extremely robust in enabling significant alterations over the decades and centuries, which has only added to their longevity and desirability. Despite the qualities, the heat-leaking building envelope of Victorian houses is highly inefficient in the context of contemporary use patterns and expectations.
