Gort Scott is delighted to announce that work is starting on site at Woolwich Old Town Hall, where the practice is retrofitting this Grade II listed building to create a new arts hub in the heart of Woolwich town centre. Dating from the 1840s, the building is the oldest surviving municipal building in Woolwich and forms part of a historic quarter of civic buildings.

Over the years, numerous development phases and ad-hoc alterations have resulted in multiple entry points, level changes and internal partitioning, making the building difficult to navigate and detracting from its historic significance. Through a series of sensitive insertions and alterations, Gort Scott’s design improves access, reveals the historic stair, restores the building’s relationship to the street, and transforms the rear yard into a landscaped shared courtyard for public events and everyday use.

Gort Scott was appointed following an invited competition in 2022 as architects, conservation architects and lead consultants. Working with the Royal Borough of Greenwich and Second Floor Studios & Arts, the practice will deliver 21 genuinely affordable spaces for artists, makers and designers in Woolwich and Greenwich. The workspaces will include dedicated wash-up areas for wet art materials, secure bike storage and accessible WC facilities. A building at the rear of the Old Library will be converted into new artists’ studios which can be used as a gallery space during open studios events.

Gort Scott is pleased to have been appointed by the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Bexley to lead the preparation of a new Urban Regeneration Framework for Abbey Wood.

Working with a multidisciplinary team including Something Collective, Cushman & Wakefield, Newmark, Periscope and Mott MacDonald, Gort Scott will help shape a long-term vision for Abbey Wood that identifies key opportunities, supports local ambitions, and provides a co-ordinated framework for development, public realm improvements and investment.

Abbey Wood is a place of significant opportunity, with the potential to build on its growing connectivity, rich local character and neighbourhood assets. The Framework will provide a strategic and deliverable plan for how the area can evolve over time, supporting inclusive growth, healthier streets and spaces, and a more sustainable future.

This work builds on Gort Scott’s ongoing relationship with Royal Borough of Greenwich. The practice recently completed work on Royal Arsenal Gatehouse and will shortly be starting on site at Woolwich Old Town Hall.

This month, Andrew Tam, Associate at Gort Scott, joined Sarah Le Gresley and Emily Herbert on Michelmersh’s Forming the Future podcast to discuss the intersection of architecture and climate change.

The conversation explored the environmental impact of design decisions, the challenge of collecting robust data for whole life carbon assessment, and why sustainability must be embedded from the outset. It also touched on future homes standards, circularity, retrofit, biodiversity, and the behavioural changes needed to reduce carbon across the built environment.

Thank you to the Michelmersh team for the invitation and for creating space for such an important discussion on how we can help form a better future.

Visit Michelmersh.co.uk to listen to the podcast.

Maximising the benefit to local communities has always been central to how we design and deliver our projects.

Our Social Value Strategy sets out how we embed this thinking into our practice — not as a compliance exercise, but as a genuine expression of how we work. It is both a practical guide for project teams and a shared statement of intent: a commitment to ensuring that every project creates meaningful, lasting benefit for people and communities.

The strategy standardises our approach across the practice, creates a baseline against which all projects can be assessed, and ensures it is applicable to every project, regardless of scale.

We are interested in asking how we can do more. One key action lies in asking better questions earlier, listening carefully, and measuring what matters. Social value is not simply an ‘add-on’ at the end of a project — it is part of how we think and what we choose to take on.

The strategy also outlines how we track progress and remain accountable, for example through Impact Reviews, which provide a structured forum to identify risks and issues relating to impacts on people and planet, while exploring opportunities to maximise social value. It also includes post-occupancy evaluation and costing social value activities as a practice investment.

Launching this strategy during B Corp Month reflects the connection between our values and our actions, and our commitment to continually improving the positive impact of our practice.