Practice also appoints specialist Passivhouse architect to support flourishing Net Zero capabilities

September 2024: Award-winning architecture practice SPASE has announced a series of high profile project wins, following the completion of several milestone heritage restorations in Dorset. Led by Stefan Pitman, the studio’s founder and an advisor to Historic Royal Palaces, SPASE is renowned for expertly bringing some of the UK’s most prestigious homes and country estates into the 21st century.

Thriving in the face of architectural challenges, SPASE relishes the opportunity to combine traditional practices with innovative and often environmentally progressive design solutions. Arguably its most celebrated project, the spectacular decarbonisation of 500-year-old Athelhampton Manor, resulted in the elimination of approximately 100 tonnes of CO2 per year. Heralded as the first of its kind in the UK, the project has received many accolades since its completion, including the shortlist of this year’s AJ Retrofit Awards and the RICS’s Environmental Impact Award.

SPASE’s specialist skills were more recently utilised on restoring The Sherborne, a 13th century Grade I listed house firmly marked on Historic England’s ‘Heritage at Risk’ register. Now a thriving community arts hub and cultural destination for Dorset, SPASE’s brief included the meticulous renovation of the Georgian mansion and Mediaeval wing and the construction of a striking new, eco-glulam spruce pavilion.

Having firmly cemented SPASE as the go-to firm for eco-heritage work, the completion of such projects has generated a new wave of business for the practice. This year, SPASE has been appointed on six significant Grade I and II* listed properties; including the 400-year-old Newhouse Estate in Wiltshire, where SPASE is overseeing the sympathetic refurbishment of the 300-acre estate. The brief includes the Jacobean Trinity house, the addition of outbuildings and Net Zero measures. In Oxfordshire, SPASE has picked up a carbon-reduction brief for Waterperry House & Gardens, working with and integrating the building’s protected features alongside a suite of new eco-solutions.

Now a team of 10 RICS and RIBA chartered architects and surveyors, SPASE has announced the appointment of chartered architect Sarah Small to support its flourishing Net Zero capabilities. With over 20 years of experience in sustainable, low energy design, Sarah brings to the team a wealth of technical experience on large-scale developments in the education and residential sectors. A certified Passivhouse expert, Sarah achieved certification on the self-build of her own family home, and supports the national network for low carbon homes and Dorset Greener Homes by hosting open days to showcase self-building and low energy design. Under Sarah’s guidance, SPASE looks to increase its expertise for one-off green projects, with a focus on contemporary homes designed in line with the gold standard of energy efficiency.

Stefan Pitman, Founder of SPASE, comments; “Work in the heritage sector has really taken off. There has been a decisive shift, from the period before Covid when we were often likely to get tenders back with the renewables or insulation stripped back from our original design. Renewables were the first thing to be removed from a brief when budgets were tight. Today, with global political instability and higher energy costs, clients are drawn in by the long-term economics and can act decisively to reduce future energy costs and dependency on fossil fuels.

Conducting a retrofit upgrade on historic buildings can be an incredibly complex process and is not for the faint-hearted, but with an increasing selection of technology and the appropriate insulation availability, it’s not a question of if it can be done, but how.”