‘Even a small practice can push the boundaries of reuse’ – Brisco Loran

Episode 55. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and Rachael Owens. 

AJ Climate Champions’ latest series focuses on retrofit. Our guest today is Thom Brisco of Brisco Loran, who talks to us about Costa's Barbers, a live-work shopfront which triumphed in the Project under £500,000 category at the AJ Architecture Awards last week.

Brisco describes the conversion of a former barbers in Battersea High Street for Arrant Industries into a home/office for himself and his partner Pandora Loran. Enabled by the recent expansion of ‘retail to residential’ permitted development rights, Costa’s Barbers sports a yellow shopfront, maroon signage and a deep awning which is rolled out on sunny afternoons or when ‘it’s spitting’, providing a popular place to linger and chat.  

The architects have packed ingenuity into Costa Barbers’ 54 square metres. The shopfront incorporates sliding sash windows with panels of translucent patterned glass that can be adjusted for degrees of privacy. Behind is a tiled front room - which is used as an office and living space - and at the back the bedrooms are raised above ground level, due to flood risk from the nearby Thames. 

The project incorporates numerous salvaged materials, including corbels which support the awning box that are made of quarter sawn snooker table legs. ‘We definitely feel like a different kind of architect now,’ says Brisco. ‘The process of going through a build like this has made us less precious about having all the decisions made up front and knowing where our materials are going to come from.’ 

The architects designed and self-built the project while living on site, which meant ‘two years without a shower, two years without heating and two years of all of our stuff covered in dust.’

Sponsored by Holcim Foundation Awards.

For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.