Cockpit Deptford has won the Retrofit award at the NLA Awards, recognition for a project that opens the UK's oldest craft incubator to the street for the first time.

The judges praised how the building "opens up the world of making to the public", with reuse central to the design and the studios staying open throughout the works. That set the terms we worked within. Sixty makers stayed in production while we reworked the 1960s concrete-framed building, added a timber workshop at the rear and cut a 6m opening through the long brick wall to make a public entrance.

Behind that opening, a sealed yard is now a craft garden landscaped by Sebastian Cox. It leads to a café and education space, past a tiled mural, Head, Heart, Hand, by Cockpit-resident maker Amber Khokhar. Six years ago the site faced demolition. Cockpit's craft is now open to Deptford.