AJ Climate Champions podcast: ‘Even a small practice can push the boundaries of reuse’

Thom Brisco of Brisco Loran talks about Costa’s Barbers, a live-work shopfront which triumphed in the Project under £500,000 category at the AJ Architecture Awards last week

In this episode, 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 late 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 – 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 bedroom is the most private space,’ Thom explains, ‘so we use that flood risk measure, to grade privacy across the space at the same time.’

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.’

To catch up on all episodes of AJ Climate Champions, click here.

Source:Brisco Loran

Costa's Barbers by Brisco Loran

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About Thom Brisco

Thom Brisco set up in practice in 2016 and established Brisco Loran in 2021 with Pandora Loran, alongside whom he combines practice and teaching at Kingston School of Art. Previously he worked for Duggan Morris Architects and Jamie Fobert Architects. He trained at the University of Sheffield followed by Glasgow School of Art.

Costa’s Barbers recently won an AJ Architecture award (Project under £500k) and an AJ Retrofit and Reuse Award (Project under £300k). Brisco Loran is one of 11 emerging practices appointed to the mayor’s architecture and urbanism network in the small sites housing category.