Heritage and Regeneration
Our team of architects works with partners and communities to find viable new uses for existing buildings, safeguarding them for the future. The preservation and celebration of heritage in the built environment has always been key to The King’s Foundation’s ethos. Reusing buildings can not only save irreplaceable built heritage, the communal fabric of our places, but also save carbon from being released into the atmosphere through demolition and new construction.
Braemar Castle
The King’s Foundation became involved with Braemar Castle in 2018, facilitating a workshop to look at the future sustainability of the castle and to discuss wider issues around the village, including infrastructure, tourism, accommodation and residential provision and connectivity. We then focused in on how the castle contributed to the village and local area, and also more widely in the national narrative.
Since then, we have acted as ‘critical friend’ to the client group, helping to guide and advise on the development and delivery of the project, which was completed in 2023. The work included full restoration of the lime harling, landscaping, the restoration of the fog house and new accessible visitor facilities including interpretation across the site. One of our own Building Craft students also worked on the project, in a unique opportunity to blend our teaching and live practice work.
Drapers Hall
The King’s Foundation partnered with the Historic Coventry Trust to deliver a £4.9 million refurbishment and conversion of Drapers’ Hall into performance spaces, practice rooms, instrument storage and offices. We provided full architectural design services and aided fundraising for this magnificent grade II* listed building opposite the cathedral. Careful conservation of the facades and historic elements of the interior were balanced with new interventions to provide functionality, improve thermal performance whilst streamlining the operations and future maintenance of the building. The restoration was completed in 2021.
Middleport Pottery
In June 2011, The Prince’s Regeneration Trust helped to identify a private and public funding package to save Middleport Pottery, and restore this grade II* listed site in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, whilst providing modern facilities combining a working factory, visitor centre, workshops and offices. The work included a programme of training and educational activities to support the local community in skills provision with an emphasis on traditional British craftsmanship. The Prince’s Regeneration Trust acted as project manager for these works, and Middleport Pottery reopened to the public in July 2014.
Strata Florida
We worked in partnership with the Strata Florida Trust to produce an options appraisal, conservation management plan and business plan for the development of the grade II listed farmhouse buildings, next to the ruins of the Cistercian monastery site in Ceredigion. The Beudy community hub was completed in 2019, before the pandemic and the nearby Ty Pair restoration was completed in 2021 and opened in July as an exhibition space.
Our approach
Design Services
We have provided partial and full architectural services for the refurbishment of a number of listed and non-listed buildings with heritage and community value, including Fleetwood Hospital in Lancashire, and Draper’s Hall in Coventry. These complex projects require balancing respecting and conserving historic fabric whilst ensuring the design provides for a viable new use which will enable the building to have a sustainable future (economically and environmentally).
Advisory Services
The King’s Foundation has worked with organisations to support their fundraising, governance and business case towards the goal of regenerating or restoring heritage assets and provided client advice from inception to completion. Our work with Strata Florida Trust led to the creation of a conservation management plan to steward the site through ongoing development. At Middleport Pottery we helped to identify private and public funding to unlock regeneration, and our wider village-wide engagement process kickstarted our role as client advisor for the recently restored Braemar Castle.
The Prince’s Regeneration Trust
Our work in this field began in 1996, with the formation of ‘Regeneration through Heritage’, renamed as The Prince’s Regeneration Trust in 2011. The Trust championed the value of partnerships and worked closely with building owners, developers, community groups, local authorities and other public bodies to find sensitive and sustainable new uses for buildings at risk.The Prince’s Regeneration Trust, along with a number of other charities, was absorbed to form The Prince’s Foundation, now The Kings Foundation, and we continue to work with communities throughout the United Kingdom to preserve, restore and regenerate our built heritage.
Take a look at some of our projects
