RIAS Heritage Award

This category is for projects that enhance and preserve the character of the historic buildings within its setting. They will be judged on their approach to conservation and use of techniques that significantly deliver sustainable solutions to conserving our built heritage. The RIAS Heritage Award will celebrate distinction in historic building conservation, with a focus on the design expertise vital in transforming the user experience of the building, all the while cutting our carbon footprint. Projects nominated for this award are judged on the quality of their heritage design interventions and the transformational impact of the project on the intended user of the building and the wider community.

Previous Winners

2026

Isle of Canna House, LDN

The Canna House Project was all about balancing pioneering conservation and intervention. Research and photographic evidence were used to help reinstate the appearance of the house in its mid-twentieth century heyday, and approximately 50,000 artefacts were catalogued and removed prior to construction. Despite its light-touch appearance, works involved extensive structural repairs and strengthening, decorative restoration works, and full re-servicing, including power, data and heating. The presence of historic wallpapers made this particularly complex to carry out, without undue damage to the wall finishes and exposed flooring.

2025

Rosebank Distillery by MLA

Once considered lost, the Rosebank Distillery has been thoughtfully brought back to life following its closure in 1993, overcoming significant challenges in the process. The jury was impressed by the depth of engagement and ambition show by the design team, who navigated complex constraints including contamination, conservation, coal mining risk and listed structures. What emerges is an elegant and intelligent interplay of old and new.

Check out the rest of the special categories