Judges’ comments

Alberto Villanueva, head of the Department of Architecture, Ravensbourne University London

For Alberto Villanueva, hosting the charrette provided an opportunity to engage his students and the wider community in the debate over reuse and retrofit. ‘I really like it when the people who take decisions bring the conversation to the public,’ he says, adding that the controversy over the future of M&S’s flagship store has really caught people’s attention.

Londoners already ‘know about this case; they’ve read about it in the news,’ he says. ‘People agree that demolition is unsustainable, and that our heritage has value. This charrette shows how things can be done differently; and I hope that the outcome will be that people reflect more on these issues.’

That public engagement ethos fits well with the approach of Ravensbourne’s Department of Architecture, which is keen to build connections with local communities. It also specialises in architectural reuse and adaptation, making it a perfect host for the charrette.

‘We’re a smaller architecture school,’ says Villanueva, ‘and I want people to know that we collaborate and welcome people; that we are innovative, energetic, open. How amazing that my students could be embedded with architects on this project, talking about heritage and sustainability and understanding the city context.’

Simon Henley, partner, Henley HaleBrown

‘My grandfather, who was born in the late 19th century , wasn’t consuming; he was making-do and mending,’ says event judge Simon Henley. By the time he died in 1983, though, the UK had developed into a ‘consumer society, driven by an American model of commerciality’ in which ‘everything gets consumed and replaced faster and faster and faster’.

Henley believes that, under the pressure of the climate emergency, this must end. Meanwhile, behaviour changes prompted by online shopping and the pandemic are also challenging the business model of London’s retail heartlands. ‘The West End’s trying to work out what the hell it is,’ he says. ‘Probably, over time, more people will start living there again’ – creating demand for local restaurants, bars and pubs that demand finer-grained, more permeable buildings.

So the challenge in reviving the M&S store is that of reintroducing a sense of human scale and of physical legibility. ‘That deep, dark space is very energy-hungry to inhabit: mechanically-ventilated, air-conditioned, artificially-lit,’ explains Henley. ‘And it’s a physical volume of space and floors which doesn’t make any sense to an individual.’ Allowing in natural light and creating a space fit for humans will mean being ‘reasonably invasive, almost aggressive with the frame of the building.’

The flagship store, Henley believes, could instead lead the way to a less consumerist approach to the built environment. ‘Innovation is a word that’s been associated with great architecture now for 75, 100 years,’ he says. ‘Maybe we should be paying more attention to continuity and durability.’

Neal Shasore, head of school and chief executive, London School of Architecture

The teams presented ‘a great range of ideas’ says event judge Neal Shasore. He was ‘enormously impressed by their energy and enthusiasm’. Some commonalities among their ideas, though, raise ‘bigger questions for us all to reflect on about retrofit and heritage.’

In expressing the building’s heritage value, he says, the teams focused on the ‘memory of the retail environment; of the department store. Yet very few of the projects, if any, sought through architecture, through design, to record that; to preserve it – so it became all about the facade.’

Architecturally, that façade is unremarkable; but behind it, says Shasore, is something much more interesting: the 1920s building was among the first built using modern, steel-framed construction techniques. And while many buildings of this era on London’s premier shopping streets are listed, M&S’s property is not – creating a rare opportunity to take a very different approach to heritage.

Architects could, for example, ‘take off the Portland stone façade, or bits of it; expose the concrete or steel,’ says Shasore, arguing that the teams’ responses revealed a set of shared ‘orthodoxies’ about how we handle ‘heritage’ buildings.

Architects could ‘weave more narrative, more ideas, more life into buildings – not just make them look as safe as possible, so no one gets upset,’ he concludes. ‘In the best moments of the proposals, I felt that teams were starting to get to that – but it also revealed something quite cozy and consensual about the way we think about heritage, and that might need revisiting.’

Hattie Hartman, sustainability editor, AJ

Reshaping a building is a greater challenge than replacing it, says event judge Hattie Hartman. ‘You come across things that you weren’t expecting; you have to be very skilful and very resilient. But if it’s done well you get the most extraordinary results, because you retain the character of the existing building.’ The trick, she adds, is to ‘make modest interventions that enhance that character, without overwhelming it.’

Hartman was impressed by the quality of the teams’ ideas, noting that several had ‘analysed in detail the constraints of the existing building, the existing context, and proposed commercially viable approaches.’ Five years on from the launch of the AJ’s RetroFirst campaign, she adds, ‘it’s remarkable to see how many of the proposals creatively rebrand M&S as a retrofit hub – promoting not only slow fashion and slow food, but also circular building materials. It’s extraordinary to think of salvaged doors and windows being sold on Oxford Street.’

In Hartman’s view, the teams’ concepts ‘demonstrate beyond any doubt that the existing M&S building can be not only retained, but turned into an asset which brings life to that part of Oxford Street.’ Now leadership is required, she argues – not only from a new national government, but also from the retailer.

Sanaa Shaikh, founder, Native Studio

It’s ever more crucial, event judge Sanaa Shaikh believes, that architects develop the skills to help property owners reuse rather than rebuild their troubled assets.

o Shaikh – a leading voice in the Architects Climate Action Network – was excited to see the six teams’ ideas for M&S’s flagship store. ‘It was really great to see so much wonderful effort and care and consideration in the proposals,’ she says. ‘There was a good balance of imagination and realism.’

That said, she’d have liked to see ‘a bit more aspiration’. There was ‘an element of conservatism’ in the presentations, she says. The teams talked about the building’s cultural significance as an iconic department store – but their response was to preserve its classic looks, rather than reshaping them for a changed retail environment. ‘There was a “Let’s not mess with it” approach,’ she adds: she’d been hoping for something more adventurous than a ‘charity shop version of Selfridges.’

Nonetheless, the ideas provide a host of promising ways forward for the Oxford Street property. Now all that’s required, she concludes, is for M&S to say: ‘Let’s come together and find a way forward as to how these ideas could be developed, and how we could reimagine this space.’

Film by Ernest Simons