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Retrofit in Focus: The Pitt | AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards 2026

As sponsors of the AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards 2026, we’re taking a closer look at the projects demonstrating what thoughtful retrofit and reuse can achieve.

Next in the series is The Pitt, shortlisted in the Future Reuse category. Our structural engineering approach has helped transform a former industrial unit into a flexible community destination while retaining the existing building and introducing reclaimed structural materials.

Transforming an existing industrial building

The Pitt forms part of the wider regeneration of Granton, transforming an existing industrial building into a vibrant destination for local businesses, events and social activity.

Delivered by a charity with ambitious sustainability goals and a constrained budget, the completed development has created a community hub incorporating a bakery, outdoor sauna, street food market, community spaces and business units, with flexibility for future expansion.

Central to the project was the retention of the building’s distinctive industrial character. This required a detailed understanding of the existing structure and how its capacity could be maximised while limiting new construction.

Extensive investigations confirmed that the existing ground-floor slab could support the new lightweight mezzanine without modification. This avoided unnecessary demolition and additional structural work, reducing material use, cost and embodied carbon.

Designing around reclaimed materials

The new mezzanine combines locally sourced Scottish timber with reclaimed Cross Laminated Timber panels recovered from an unused housing development.

Rather than allowing these high-value structural components to become waste, the mezzanine was designed around the dimensions and quantity of panels available. This enabled their direct reuse and put circular economy principles into practice. Coordinating the panels off-site also helped reduce construction time, waste and environmental impact.

By retaining the industrial building, maximising its existing structural capacity and designing around reclaimed materials, The Pitt demonstrates what can be achieved through a reuse-first approach.

The result is a flexible community hub that supports local enterprise, creates long-term social value and provides an exemplar of low-carbon structural design, all delivered within the realities of a constrained community-project budget.

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