Edinburgh
By Marc Carins
As Director of Place at New Practice, part of Civic, I spend a lot of time thinking about how Scotland’s cities grow, adapt and respond to change. And as someone born, raised and working from Glasgow, I can’t ignore the well-worn trope about our “friendly rivalry” with Edinburgh. It’s often played for laughs, but I think there’s something deeper in it too: two cities, side by side, with very different characters, histories and challenges - each offering lessons for the other.
On a rainy, and sunny, and rainy again Friday 19 September, I had the pleasure of joining the Place Collective UK (PCUK) Edinburgh Study Trip - a day that felt especially timely in 2025, the 30th anniversary of Edinburgh’s UNESCO World Heritage Site status. It was an inspiring opportunity to learn, exchange, and reflect on how people-centred placemaking and community engagement are shaping the city today.
Morning: Edinburgh’s layered history and pressures on the city centre.
We began at the City Art Centre, before heading up to the Royal Mile with Ross Irvine and Francis Newton, planning and urban design officers from City of Edinburgh Council. Their introduction grounded us in the city’s history and the qualities that underpin its World Heritage status, while also confronting the development pressures that come with being one of Europe’s most visited capitals. Two live issues for the city are what to do about visitor-focused short-term lets and how to calculate and spend an upcoming tourist tax.
As we moved through The Mount and the National Galleries, and later on to St Andrew Square, we explored current transformations, from the Waverley Valley Strategy and tram extension to the redesign of George Street and the Central Edinburgh Active Travel Network (CCWEL). Each pit-stop raised the same essential question: how can Edinburgh balance its cultural heritage with the demands of a growing visitor economy and the everyday lives of its residents?
Midday: Transport, climate and integrated planning were on the menu for lunch.
At Charlotte Square, we were welcomed by Systra UK to their office for lunch and a conversation on the role of transport in shaping healthier, more connected cities. Keith McGillivray and the team shared perspectives on holistic planning and sustainable mobility, which resonated strongly with Civic’s own work embedding sustainability and resilience into projects across Scotland.
This was also a chance to introduce my colleague Becky McLean to PCUK. Becky is Civic’s Director of Sustainability and brings a wealth of expertise on integrating climate, energy and community priorities into design and planning. She leads our growing presence in Edinburgh, so it was doubly valuable to explore how these themes are playing out across the capital.
The afternoon took us north to the waterfront at Granton - one of Europe’s largest regeneration projects, being delivered on a masterplan originally conceived by Collective Architecture and Studio for New Realities. Led by Programme Director Sat Patel and the City of Edinburgh Council team, we explored sites that are already signalling a new future for this part of the city:
· Granton Station, now re-imagined as a hub for creative enterprise and managed by Wasps SCIO.
· The Edinburgh Home Demonstrator project, testing new approaches to low-carbon housing.
· The Granton Gasholder, kickstarting the transformation of a new kind of city park.
· And emerging cultural anchors like The Pitt, showing how creative uses can lead regeneration, especially along the historically neglected waterfront
We closed the day at Madelvic House, meeting leaders from Lar Housing Trust and Granton Hub, delivering new homes and social infrastructure in a heritage industrial site. Becky commented,
“The space at Granton Hub is so important for the local community. It was warm and welcoming and provides a real link to the past, helping us understand where we have come from to know where we are going.
“The presentation from Lar Housing CEO Ann Leslie and Project Director Philip Walker was inspirational in many ways: the beautiful affordable housing they’re creating across Scotland; their use of our fascinating and complex old industrial buildings; and their innovative financial model. It was really a new blueprint for tackling our housing crisis in a fresh way, to provide amazing sustainable outcomes for residents, communities, local authorities and Scotland.”
Reflections
For me, highlights included seeing how Edinburgh’s waterfront is being repositioned as a place not just for housing, but for culture, climate resilience, and community life – themes we’re exploring with Civic colleagues through projects such as Shore Station for HUB in Leith, another emerging part of Edinburgh. These conversations reinforce why embedding sustainability, inclusivity, heritage awareness and 22nd century thinking in design is critical for the future of Scotland’s cities.
Looking ahead
Days like this remind me why I value being a member of Place Collective UK... Can you believe it is free to join!? They create space for practitioners across sectors to walk, talk, and think together about the opportunities and challenges of placemaking. Scotland needs more shared learning experiences of this kind – where we can collectively test ideas, challenge assumptions, and see first-hand what’s working.
My thanks to PCUK Steering Group member Lisa Taylor along with Systra UK, City of Edinburgh Council, Lar Housing Trust and Granton Hub, for such a thoughtful and generous programme, to fellow PCUK leaders Marion Mac Cormick for helping to rally a fantastic variety of people, and Paul Augarde for all the lively conversations.
I want to end on a call to action: If you are a local authority in Scotland who would like to host Place Collective UK in your city, town, or to showcase your projects, please do reach out to their team. These conversations are essential if we are serious about shaping places that reflect both our histories and our shared futures. They hope to start a PCUK Scotland arm (there’s already one in Wales), so get in touch if interested!
