shedkm has taken the shedkm AJ Retrofit Practice award, named Practice of the Year at the 2026 AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards for a body of work that combines technical retrofit rigour with measurable social impact. The accolade was announced at an awards ceremony on 24 September at The Troxy, the Grade II-listed Art Deco venue in east London.
The editorial team cited the practice’s ability to bring the same sensitive yet pragmatic approach to undistinguished post-war structures as it has long applied to heritage industrial buildings. Two category wins in this year’s programme anchored the case: Adaptive Reuse into Office (up to £10 million) for the Civic scheme in Wigan, and Adaptive Reuse into Residential for Zodiac House in Croydon.
Civic and Zodiac: the schemes behind the shedkm AJ Retrofit Practice award
Civic, delivered for clients Capital&Centric and Wigan Council, converts a 1960s civic centre that had stood vacant since 2018 into 3,000m² of BREEAM Excellent-rated workspace alongside 400m² of shared amenity space incorporating a gym, mini-cinema and public café. Green roof terraces add a further layer of environmental and placemaking value. One judge described the result as having ‘turned it into an alive space, both inside and out’.
Zodiac House, designed for developer Common Projects and subsequently acquired by Croydon Council, tells a longer story of vacancy. According to the Housing Design Awards, the Brutalist office block in Broad Green, West Croydon, had been empty for 25 years before retrofit began. The scheme delivers 73 apartments for families at risk of homelessness, together with a residents’ lounge, a new community hub and a 1,000m² community garden.
The Zodiac project also carries a lesson about density and quality. Reporting on the 2026 AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards, the Architects’ Journal noted that the design prioritises decent living spaces over unit count: the scheme delivers 73 generous one-, two- and three-bedroom flats where a previous proposal had sought to fit 115 units into the same building. That shift represents a substantive design judgement, placing floor area per household and long-term habitability ahead of headline numbers.
Both schemes are fabric-first in their approach, improving operational performance through the existing envelope and structure before layering in new programme. Both also retain and celebrate the architectural character of buildings that could easily have been dismissed as disposable. The AJ observed that shedkm ‘has brought to them the same sensitive, yet pragmatic approach seen in its adaptation of heritage industrial buildings such as Crusader’.
From modular housing to retrofit: shedkm’s evolving practice
The practice’s trajectory into retrofit did not begin with Zodiac or Civic. shedkm built an early reputation around modern methods of construction in housing, including the MoHo apartment block in Manchester, completed in 2005, and a terraced ‘House’ model, both developed for Urban Splash. In recent years, however, the practice’s inventive energy has shifted increasingly towards existing stock.
The Crusader scheme, completed in 2022, offers the clearest precedent. The project transformed an 1840s former textile mill in Manchester into 126 apartments, won two RIBA awards and was shortlisted in the housing category of the AJ Retrofit Awards in 2023. Reviewing the project for the AJ, Fran Williams described it as ‘making something beautiful out of an underused historical artefact’. Crusader established the approach that Civic and Zodiac have since extended to 1960s commercial structures with very different architectural characters.
The Zodiac community hub adds another dimension to the practice’s reuse ethic. The hub repurposes a shedkm-designed cross-laminated timber pavilion that had previously served as a sales booth at a separate shedkm scheme, closing a material loop rather than sourcing new structure. ‘It’s a real act of remaking creatively,’ said one judge.
The 2026 awards programme attracted nearly 110 shortlisted projects across 18 categories, each presenting to a 28-strong jury in virtual sessions over the summer. Jurors included Lewisham Council net zero carbon manager Tania Jennings, Max Fordham partner and director of sustainability Hero Bennett, and associate professor at the London School of Architecture Ruth Lang. The programme was renamed the AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards in 2024 to reflect an expanding scope that now encompasses adaptive reuse, decarbonisation and whole-life carbon reduction alongside conventional retrofit.
Last year’s Practice of the Year, Feix&Merlin, was recognised for its £18.4 million transformation of Walworth Town Hall, retaining 95 per cent of the Grade II-listed building’s original fabric while creating workspace for 550 people. shedkm’s 2026 win follows that precedent: the AJ stated that the practice ’embodies commitment with a body of work that demonstrates the social, environmental and architectural possibilities of reuse.’ Both Civic and Zodiac will be featured in the 2026 awards documentation published by the journal.
