This issue is dedicated to retrofit. The projects featured demonstrate how light-touch approaches to reuse can get existing buildings back into community use, working with their scars and witness marks rather than against them.

There are four building studies. David Kohn Architects and Bovenbouw Architectuur have transformed an 18th-century beguinage in Belgium into a new home for Hasselt University’s Faculty of Architecture and Arts. THING Studio is three years into a phased retrofit of Redruth’s Grade II-listed former Passmore Edwards Free Library, transforming it into a community arts centre. Sean Griffiths, pHp architects, Studio Morison and Giles Round have turned a vacant 1930s civic building in Northampton into a home for art and creative production. And RCKa has retrofitted a derelict community hall in Barking and Dagenham as a youth hub co-designed with local young people.

There are two news features on how a team of architects including Henley Halebrown, Peter Barber Architects and East Architecture aims to revamp the centre of Winchester, and on who will rebuild the Mackintosh building at the Glasgow School of Art after the school conceded it cannot fund the estimated £265 million restoration alone.

The issue previews the six RIBA Stirling Prize 2026 finalists, with Witherford Watson Mann the bookmakers’ favourite for its River Wing at Clare College, Cambridge, and reveals the shortlisted finalists for the AJ Architecture Awards 2026 across 21 categories.

In Opinion, Saul Humphrey, incoming president of the Chartered Institute of Building, argues that collaboration between designers and builders has never been more important. In Culture, Suzanne Ewing reviews the exhibition Ushida Findlay: Unbroken Spaces at V&A Dundee, and David Grandorge’s photograph of the opening of the Tate Tanks in 2012 reflects on the audacity of adaptive reuse.

Rounding out the issue are the Secret Architect on why MEP engineers are their favourites, sketches by Jack Pannell of Common Ground Workshop, and a competitions compilation.