Brown’s of Leith and Burr’s of Tongue shortlisted in the 2026 EAA Awards

Two GRAS projects are shortlisted in the 2026 Edinburgh Architectural Association Awards. Brown’s of Leith in Small Project and Burr’s of Tongue in Ambassador Project category.

The shortlist brings into focus two placemaking gestures at either end of the country, a trading post serving the north coast again and a workshop continuing making things on the Shore. Despite the geographical distance between them, both follow the same conservation ethos that runs through the practice through attentive reading of the existing fabric, repairing what can be saved and adding only what is needed.

Burr’s of Tongue sits on the A838 at the northern edge of the village, on the North Coast 500. The store had been in poor condition after years of unsympathetic alteration. WildLand asked whether it could return to the role it had held for most of a century.

Early investigation found much of the original fabric, furniture and fittings intact beneath the later work. An event held in the uncovered building drew out the rest, including the merchant networks that once linked the north coast, and what was shared there shaped everything that followed. Peter Burr took on the running of the shop in 1913 and bought it outright in 1932. The Burrs ran a bakehouse that supplied the tearoom and shop next door, and a bus and van service reaching as far as Thurso. The building had never been only a shop, and the brief followed from understanding that. Timber finials, the projecting window bay and the entrance door and fanlight were reinstated from photographs in the Strathnaver Museum archive. Internal linings were kept with the markings, graffiti and shop labels left by attendants still on them. Shelving was rebuilt from the marks it had left on the walls, in reclaimed scaffold boards. Salvaged floorboards, door handles, locks and window furniture were used wherever new was required and fossil-fuel derived and cementitious materials were kept to a minimum throughout. A new boardwalk and accessible entrance open the south elevation to the sun.

The store now holds Alba Bakery, so bread is being baked on the Burr’s site again, alongside petrol and garage services and space for arts and community gatherings. The project marks the first phase of Wildland’s regeneration of the site, writing itself into their 200 years vision.

Brown’s of Leith sits within the former George Brown & Sons Engineering Works on the Shore. The Category B-listed building housed engineers and metalworkers for more than 130 years. It opened in November 2025 as the initial unlocking of a multi-year conversion.

The gantry cranes remain overhead and still work as well as the marks connecting the building to its industrial past are kept. New elements are held to three materials: stainless steel, reclaimed sandstone and linen. The back bar is built from reworked waste brick from Hutton Stone’s Darney Quarry. The steel components were hand-finished by The Ritual Works. Independent food and drink partners trade from the ground floor, alongside whisky blenders, jewellers, textile artists, florists and publishers, with further studios and event space to follow. Brown’s extends the Custom Lane creative ecosystem, a decade of placemaking along this stretch of water.

Winner’s are announced later this Autumn. Thank you to our clients, contractors, craftspeople and the communities behind both projects.

Photography: Nick Law for WildLand and Richard Gaston for GRAS.