The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
Spring statement: VAT abolished on energy-saving materials and solar panels
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced he is abolishing VAT on energy-saving materials, heat pumps and solar panels to help homeowners keep energy costs down
RetroFirst
RetroFirst is an AJ campaign to prioritise retrofit over demolition and rebuild. Hundreds of architecture practices, organisations and individuals have declared their support for our campaign
Slash VAT on retrofit to 5%, Tory big beasts tell chancellor
Two former cabinet ministers have echoed the AJ RetroFirst campaign in calling on Rishi Sunak to use his Spring Statement to cut VAT on refurbishment to 5 per cent
The benefits of retrofit are legion and long-lasting
Retrofit can help people thrive in the places they already love, says Emily Booth
What should we do with ‘the ugliest building in Britain’?
Replacing Cumbernauld’s despised town centre megastructure would come with a monumental carbon cost. Can't we find a compromise? asks Barnabas Calder
Do we need a new word for ‘retrofit’?
Post-war renovation of homes was seen as progressive and aspirational – we need to think like that about today’s building upgrades, writes Cristina Monteiro
Architects lead retrofit campaigners’ march on Whitehall
An £11.7 billion ‘Great Homes Upgrade’ could end dependence on Russian gas while combating fuel poverty and the climate crisis, campaigners have told the chancellor
RIBA demands mass retrofit of 3.3m interwar homes to tackle fuel poverty
The RIBA has called on the government to roll out a new fuel poverty-busting national retrofit strategy for millions of interwar homes
First glimpse of McAslan’s £68m overhaul of Glasgow’s Burrell Collection
Glasgow’s famous Burrell Collection will reopen next month following a five-year, £68.3 million revamp overseen by John McAslan + Partners
Neil Dusheiko wins planning for house makeover with 5m green wall
Neil Dusheiko Architects has won planning approval to extend a Victorian terraced house in Lewisham with a scheme that includes a 5m-high internal green wall
Tory MP to introduce embodied carbon bill in Parliament
Embodied carbon is a ‘concrete and steel elephant in the room’ which must be tackled through new government legislation, a Conservative MP will tell the Commons today