The awards celebrate architectural excellence in the renewal and repurposing of existing buildings. They cover 16 categories and emphasise the reuse of materials and structure. The winners across the categories, which range from adaptive reuse to decarbonisation to net zero retrofit, were announced tonight (Wednesday 10 September).
In addition, three editorially-chosen awards were announced: Retrofit of the year, Practice of the year and Client of the year.
The University of Edinburgh took home one of the top accolades, Client of the Year, for its Edinburgh Futures Institute project, completed in July 2024 by Bennetts Associates.
Every project entered for this year’s AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards was invited to put forward its client for the prize.
‘They always supported proposals for quality and durability, despite the pressures to cut costs,’ said Bennetts of its client in its nomination for the award.
The complex transformation of the city’s former Royal Infirmary into a learning, research and innovation facility also won this year’s Conservation and historic (£10 million and over) category.
Edinburgh Futures Institute by Bennetts Associates
The £120 million makeover of the listed Victorian hospital is the university’s largest ever single investment. Its extensive retrofit and reimagining of the building, which includes a new public square created in the courtyard, was described by judges as exhibiting ‘great vigour and sensitivity’.
When the university acquired the site in 2015, the hospital, despite being a loved local landmark with a Category A listing, was in very poor condition following years of disuse and was judged too challenging a project by developers. During construction work, further challenges ensued, not least the Covid-19 pandemic and the uncovering of extensive dry rot and structural issues.
Through all this, says Bennetts, the University of Edinburgh ‘did not deviate from the architectural strategy’.
Edinburgh is the fourth largest university in the UK, and is responsible for a swathe of historic and modern buildings across the city. Edinburgh Futures Institute is the latest in a series of building projects it has commissioned over the past few years across this estate.
Other notable projects include The Bayes Centre, also by Bennetts Associates, completed in 2018, featuring a five-storey top-lit atrium bringing together a mix of facilities for academics and students working across fields such as data technology and robotics, and start-up space for industrial collaborators.
The Bayes Centre by Bennetts Associates, completed in 2018
More recently is the Nucleus Building by Sheppard Robson, which won a 2025 RIAS Award and provides a centrally located facility on the university’s campus with a range of flexible undergraduate teaching spaces shared across faculties, as well as joint amenities such as a café that’s open to the public and student counselling centre.
Like the Futures Institute, it is integrated into a centralised district heating network.
‘These projects are noteworthy for being innovative socially or environmentally and with features that help tie them back into the surrounding city,’ said the AJ editorial team.
‘Such projects reflect the university’s longstanding commitment to reducing its carbon emissions to as close to zero as possible by 2040. They speak, too, of the long-term strategic commitment and perspective of an exceptional client.’
In 2024, Historic England, a non-departmental arm of government whose responsibility it is to protect the UK’s historic environment, was named Client of the Year for its £28 million Shrewsbury mill repair and reuse.
A body not usually known in a client capacity, it has pushed hard for over 15 years for the repair and transformation of the world’s first iron-framed building into a social enterprise hub and leisure destination, retrofitted by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and winner in the Adaptive reuse into mixed-use category the same year.
Last year, the 15-year-old AJ Retrofit Awards were rebranded as the AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards, a title more appropriate to the discussion surrounding retrofit with new award categories introduced.
All 100-plus practices shortlisted for this year’s awards were invited to present their schemes to a panel of judges, virtually, through a brief five-minute presentation followed by up to 10 minutes of Q&A. The 30-strong jury included curator and consultant Vanessa Norwood, Max Fordham director of sustainability Hero Bennett and Tyler Goodwin, founder and CEO of Seaforth.
The winners in the 16 categories, plus three editorially-chosen awards, were announced at an awards ceremony at The Brewery in the City of London on Wednesday 10 September, following the AJ’s Retrofit Live conference.
The 2025 AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards are sponsored by
