Most people will have come across a listed building in their life, either through visiting one of many historically significant sites under the stewardship of the National Trust or similar conservation organisation or perhaps because they are fortunate enough to live in one. Owning a listed property brings with it great responsibility for the care, upkeep and protection of a piece of our national heritage.

The National Trust’s Kingston Lacy in Dorset – a fine example of a Grade I listed building

On a recent visit to clients on two sites in central England, Owen, our Breathaplasta Product Manager, saw first-hand the level of care and craftsmanship that’s required when breathing new life into our listed buildings and restoring them to their former glory.

Corley Manor, Warwickshire

In July 2018 Owen visited Corley Manor, a Grade II listed Georgian Manor house situated in the village of Corley, North Warwickshire. Owen was there to see Lime expert, Mark Holden from The Lime Plastering Company who’s been tasked with bringing the building back to life alongside a team of specialist heritage builders and tradesmen.

Corley Manor, Warwickshire

The Manor house dates back to 1823 where it was the former Rectory to Corley Parish Church. The building is packed with original Georgian features from high ceilings with original coving to large bay windows, hand decorated fireplaces and a grand sweeping staircase that leads up to a central landing and five large bedrooms. Not for the faint-hearted, Corley Manor needed total renovation and modernisation from top to bottom and this is where Adaptavate’s products came into their own.

As a pre-mixed blended lime plaster, Breathaplasta was the natural choice when it came to selecting appropriate materials for a sympathetic renovation. Breathaplasta offers all the qualities of a soft lime putty plaster, but with enhanced breathability and a workability and setting time more similar to gypsum based plasters. This allowed Mark and his team to breeze through the property and plaster entire rooms in just a single day, whereas with other, similar products it may have taken more like 2-3 days. Further speeding the process was Mark’s use of Adaptavate’s freshly launched Grip Coat plaster primer. Just like Breathaplasta, this high quality, ultra-breathable product saves time and labour on installation.

Mark from The Lime Plastering Company said;

“By priming the pre-existing areas of lime plaster and ceilings with Adaptavate’s grip coat, we were able to quickly and easily over skim a top coat of Breathaplasta. This not only helped restore a high level of breathability to the building fabric, but also enabled us to easily obtain the slightly more textured finish desired by the client”.

We will be following Mark’s project to its expected completion this Autumn.

If you have a project in the West Midlands and require an experienced lime plasterer, why not contact Mark by following this link to his website.

Heather Hall, Leicestershire

In July 2018, Owen also visited Heather Hall in Leicestershire. A large and impressive redbrick Grade II listed house dating back to the 18^th century. Owen met with Nick Miller of NM Joinery Design Ltd. whose company took on the challenging project of bringing the building back from the brink.

Heather Hall, Leicestershire

Most likely built as a grand farmhouse, for most of its history it was owned by the Goode family before serving as a girls’ day and boarding school and finally as a riding stable in the mid and late 20th century. The Hall, stables and land were purchased in 2014 in an extremely poor state of repair after nearly a quarter of a century of neglect and so began the restoration and re-purposing of the hall as a single dwelling.

Nick is project managing a complicated restoration project that has not only brought the building back from the brink but has totally modernised and transformed the interior. The ‘hard-to-treat’ solid brick external walls have been successfully insulated by lining the interiors with Aerogel ultra-thin high-performance insulation boards. This provides maximum thermal performance and modern comfort without needing to make big alterations to the walls. This philosophy continues throughout the building as Breathaplasta is applied at 4-7mm on internal walls and partition boards to further improve thermal performance prior to the application of a fine lime putty top coat skim finish to blend with the natural tones of the stone features within the property.

Rob who’s contracted to complete all plastering on behalf of NM Joinery Design Ltd. said;

“I’m impressed with Breathaplasta and it’s a really nice lime plaster to work with. It’s quick and easy to apply and enables you to work fast – great for a large project such as this. I also like that the natural texture of the plaster gives it a ‘built-in’ grip for follow up coats. It allows you to build up multiple coats of Breathaplasta really nicely without the need for ‘scratching’ the base coat each time, which again saves time”.

We will be following Nick’s project over the next year as it moves to completion.

If you have an upcoming project in the Midlands, why not contact Nick by following this link to his website.

Adaptavate were super excited to be invited to the beautiful and historic Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, to take part in a Climate KIC two-day Masterclass on meaningful branding. Owen, our Breathaplasta Product Manager packed his bags, jumped on a plane and joined an event attended by well over 40 other cleantech startups from right across Europe.

Beautiful Tallinn

From renewable energy and energy efficiency to software developers, food innovators and materials scientists the room was buzzing with great ideas and fizzing with the kind of energy you’d expect from cleantech pioneers.

Masterclass in action on Day 1

The event was led by Alisa Murphy, the founder and CEO of Life Size Media, one of the only communications agencies in Europe that chooses to work exclusively in cleantech. Life Size Media work on the belief that a good story can change the world, and they only tell those stories for companies that they genuinely want to see succeed. They’ve run award-winning campaigns combining public relations with design, marketing, digital and film and so had a lot to share with the room.

#cleantechheroes with Alisa Murphy, founder and CEO of Life Size Media

The Masterclass was a fascinating insight into the power of effective branding and messaging and the two-day session provided a lens for Adaptavate to better define its brand strategy and key messages and consider how to communicate this to customers.

Our Product Manager, Owen said “it is great to have these opportunities to work alongside other exciting and innovative young companies; to learn from their experiences, both good and bad and to bounce off their positive energy. I think the cleantech world is naturally a place for positive and innovative people who are looking to make a meaningful contribution to society and the environment through their work. This Masterclass was all about finding effective ways to channel that energy and positivity into successful branding and I think every company in the room left with a clearer vision of the message they wanted to communicate to their customers”.

Thanks to Alisa Murphy and the team at Life Size Media and to Climate KIC for their ongoing support.

Adaptavate is a company built on ecological foundations, set up to develop and commercialise the next generation of bio materials for the mainstream construction industry. For four years we’ve been working to highlight health in our homes and buildings and the importance of healthy material choices as well as performance materials that can regulate moisture and improve indoor air quality. In this time the subject of healthy buildings has rapidly moved up the agenda and it was enormously pleasing this month to see The Green Register offer the UK’s first ever half-day series of training on Building Biology at DeskLodge, Bristol.

Desklodge Bristol

Hosted by the Green Register in partnership with the ASBP and presented by Tomas Gartner, Architect and Director at Passivhaus architects Gale & Snowden. The events proved a fascinating introduction to Building Biology and the Building Biology Standard – a simple methodology that puts health in our homes and building right at the forefront of design. The event was well attended by architects, developers and building professionals and really highlighted the importance of the fabric first approach for the health and wellbeing of building occupants. Of particular note was the reflection on how to improve indoor air quality and regulate moisture in our increasingly airtight and energy efficient living and working spaces. An excellent forum to learn from experts and discuss material specification with interested professionals. 

Greenwood house by Gale & Snowden Architects

What is Building Biology?

Building Biology is the holistic study of the interrelationships between humans and their man-made environment.  It is the science of creating healthy, life enhancing buildings. The Institute of Building Biology and Sustainability was founded in Germany in 1983 and from this the Building Biology Standard (Standard der Baubiologischen Messtechnik / SBM) was developed. This standard (most recently SBM-2015) gives an overview of the physical, chemical and biological, risks encountered in different parts of a building.  It offers guidelines on how to: perform specific measurements for other environmental factors such as indoor air quality; measure and evaluate electromagnetic radiation exposure and assess possible health risks.

The Building Biology movement is growing with over 6000 architects, doctors, surveyors, material suppliers etc trained internationally to create interiors which promote life within the built environment.

To find out more go to www.buildingbiology.co.uk

This month saw our founder; Tom invited to the Houses of Parliament as part of the
UK Green Building Council’s (UKGBC) release of an influential report on Healthy
House Building. The report aims to highlight the need to balance the need for
300,000 new homes a year with the quality to which these homes are built.

In a time when outdoor air pollution rightly gets a lot of exposure in the media, it is
important to consider the air quality of our homes and work places as we spend on
average 90% of our time indoors. The cost to the NHS of treating medical conditions
associated with poor living conditions is estimate to be as high as £2.5bn per year.

The UKGBC released a paper in 2016 highlighting the need and opportunity in this
space and has continued their work to date to bring it to the public’s consciousness
as the Prime Minister herself has recognised the connections between local environment and wellbeing in her 25 year Environment Plan.

It was a very well attended event with some of the big contractors, architects and
thinkers attending and an engaging address from Rebecca Pow MP, (Parliamentary
Private Secretary, DEFRA) and Ashley Bateson from Hoare Lea who were
collaborating on the report.

From Adaptavate’s point of view, this is a very informative paper and re-iterates that
the inclusion of the next generation of high performing, healthy building products
such as Breathaboard and Breathaplasta into the market is as important as ever.
This is combined with the fact that people are becoming increasingly aware of what
their homes are made of and how this effects their health.

This supports the notion that, as product developers, we need to continue to design
high-performing materials that don’t just ‘do a job’ but that can help improve people’s
lives, by creating healthy, liveable and beautiful spaces in which to work and play. It
is also our job to make sure that the materials are easy to use and specify and that
people across the spectrum understand the benefits in a clear and transparent way,
supported by substantiated performance claims and rigorous testing procedures.