Shedkm‘s Karparc car park conversion in Newcastle-under-Lyme has won the first ever Creative Re-use award at the Housing Design Awards, with the judges recognising a scheme that turns a Brutalist multistorey concrete structure into 111 private-rent flats while retaining the embodied carbon locked into its existing frame.
Karparc car park conversion: the brief and the carbon case
The multistorey structure had previously been earmarked for demolition. Instead, developer Capital & Centric and shedkm pursued a design strategy that minimises structural intervention, preserving the concrete frame rather than replacing it. In embodied-carbon terms, that approach avoids the significant upfront carbon cost of demolition and new-build construction, a calculus that is becoming central to retrofit decision-making under frameworks such as LETI’s targets and the RIBA Sustainable Outcomes Guide.
The project, which is currently under construction by contractor Clegg Construction and is believed to be the first car park-to-residential conversion of its kind in the UK, sits within a cluster of town-centre renewal schemes designed by shedkm alongside landscape architect Planit. Beyond the retained concrete structure, the design adds rooftop extensions, communal gardens and a three-floor atrium housing a gym, social hub and mini-cinema.
The Creative Re-use award is sponsored by Historic England and was introduced as part of the annual Housing Design Awards this year, inspired by the Architects’ Journal’s RetroFirst campaign, which advocates for retrofit and re-use over demolition and new build. A spokesperson for Historic England said: ‘This development shows just how bold we can be with reimagining existing buildings and spaces in our town centres.’
A broader picture of regional housing ambition
The 78th Housing Design Awards were held in central London on 22 September and presented by the government’s chief planner, Joanna Averley. The Karparc car park conversion was not the only scheme to draw attention away from the capital. Regions outside London were strongly represented across the winners, with Runcorn, Manchester, Hove, Bristol and Middlesbrough all featuring prominently.
The ‘Winner of Winners’ prize went to developer Thirteen Group and architect IDP Partnership Northern for Union Village in Middlesbrough, a family-friendly housing scheme on a site that stood vacant for over 20 years after terraced housing was cleared under the Housing Renewal Programme. The project was recognised for its ability to restore coherent community infrastructure to a long-neglected urban parcel.
Other awards were won by architects including FCBStudios, Proctor and Matthews, DK-Architects and Metropolitan Workshop. Metropolitan Workshop’s council housing proposal for the Kings Road car park in Tottenham is due to start on site next month, making it one of several car park sites across the country now being assessed for residential potential rather than continued parking use.
Retrofit credentials and what the award signals
The introduction of a dedicated Creative Re-use category reflects a shift in how housing awards programmes are measuring design quality. Where embodied carbon was once treated as a secondary consideration behind operational performance, schemes that demonstrably avoid demolition-and-rebuild carbon are now being assessed on those credentials directly. For the Karparc car park conversion, the retained concrete structure is not simply a cost or programme decision: it is the central design and sustainability argument.
The project also illustrates the planning and design complexity involved in converting multistorey car parks, structures designed around ramp gradients, floor-to-ceiling heights and structural grids that do not map neatly onto residential typologies. That shedkm’s scheme has reached construction stage, and is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, will make it a closely watched reference point for similar proposals elsewhere.
All winning designs, along with films of four of the winners, are available at hdawards.org.
