Retrofitting has long been key to transforming historic or disused buildings, but rarely has it seemed so integral to shaping London’s sustainable future. It is for this reason that REHAU is sponsoring the Retrofit category at the 2025 NLA Awards. It has been encouraging to see such an impressive field, with all projects showing a commitment to best practices and high-quality design that, applied at scale, will be vital to making existing buildings more energy-efficient in the capital and further afield. 

There is much to do to ensure that UK building stock meets increasingly stringent thermal performance requirements, especially with net zero targets getting ever closer. Upgrading is essential across all property types, and here at REHAU we have been especially vocal about the challenge that local authorities and housing associations face when overhauling existing social housing estates. Most of these properties were built in an era long predating modern energy standards but retrofitting provides a significant opportunity for architects and the wider supply chain. 

This year’s NLA Award nominees clearly demonstrate retrofitting’s immense potential across all types of building stock. The sensitive refurbishment of Walworth Town Hall is a great example how historic buildings can be resurrected even after devastating fires, while the transformation of Deptford’s Cockpit shows how retrofitting can help evolve London’s world-leading cultural infrastructure. 

Over in Clerkenwell, The Waterman’s ambitious re-imagining of four industrial warehouses within the area’s Green Conservation Area demonstrates a clear roadmap to how large heritage buildings can achieve an EPC A rating, with the sensitive retrofit and extension of Grade II-listed Space House also making a big impression in Covent Garden. 

The blending of new and old at Wimbledon’s former fire station underpins its new life as the Huddle creative space, and a similar effect can be seen in the regeneration of three historic urban blocks at Norton Folgate, on the City Fringe. A deep retrofit of a former textile workshop at 469 Bethnal Green Road underlines the core strengths of retrofitting, with a once-condemned building now providing 2,200 square metres of contemporary, flexible workspace. 

Finally, the refurbishment of the Grimaldi Building as the Royal National Institute for Blind People’s London headquarters is a great good-news story, and the modernisation and extension of a Victorian warehouse at Greycoat Stores provides an eye-catching and vibrant mixed-use building in the heart of Westminster.

What these projects show is not just technical proficiency, but a shift in mindset. Retrofitting now goes beyond the baseline of bringing back old and decrepit buildings. It is about creating properties fit for the future, and this requires collaboration across supply chains to ensure that the right materials and components are used to transform structures.

This is the thinking behind our recent Retrofit Right initiative, which aims to foster more frequent collaboration between architects, specifiers and component manufacturers when overhauling existing properties. As these nominees show, retrofitting can cover many bases, and engaging expertise earlier on can help key project stakeholders make the most informed decisions.

I’m proud that REHAU continues to support the NLA Awards and this important category. From a financial, logistical and regulatory standpoint, retrofitting can be a complicated process. But as these projects show, with the correct levels of coordination and leveraging of supply chain knowledge, it can achieve spectacular results.

Best of luck to everyone on the shortlist – we’ll see you on awards night!

Click the link for more information on REHAU’s Retrofit Right initiative.