Studio-led
The people who win your trust are the people who draw your building. We do not hand projects down a chain.
A quieter
way to build
Our method is patient by design. We would rather solve a problem on paper than discover it on site.
Design philosophy
We design for the fiftieth year, not the first
Most buildings are photographed once and lived in forever. We work for the second life: the quiet decades after the ribbon is cut, when a building either settles into its place or begins to fight it. That means a narrow palette of honest materials, rooms proportioned for daylight, and details simple enough to repair. We add nothing a building does not need, and we remove what it can do without.
See the work
The process
Five steps, every project
01
Listen
We begin on site and in conversation, mapping the place, the light and the people who will use the building long before we draw. The brief is something we write together with you.
02
Sketch
A handful of clear ideas, tested in model and section. We look for the single move that makes the rest of the building obvious, and we throw away everything that does not serve it.
03
Test
Daylight, acoustics, carbon and cost are modelled early, while the design is still soft. Trade-offs are made in the open, on paper, where they are cheap to change.
04
Detail
Every junction is drawn at full size. Materials are left to read as themselves, and the number of them is kept low so the building ages as one thing rather than many.
05
Build and tend
We stay on site through construction and return after handover. A building teaches you things in its first winters, and we would rather learn them with you than move on.
Material and sustainability
Going forward by building less.
The greenest structure is the one you do not build twice. We design for long life and loose fit, choose materials that can be taken apart and used again, and keep our sourcing close to the site. Our material research runs every winter, and the findings are open to clients and students alike.
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Long life, loose fit
Buildings planned to change use without being torn down.
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Low-carbon by default
Timber, low-carbon concrete and reclaimed stone, measured at every stage.
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Designed for disassembly
Bolted, not glued, so materials keep their value at the end of a life.
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Sourced close to home
A short supply chain we can visit, trust and hold to account.
Our commitments
Measured, not implied
0%
Recycled or bio-based content
0
Year design horizon
0 km
Median sourcing radius
0
Winters of material research
Working together
One studio, from first call to first winter
Close co-creation
Regular, plain-spoken reviews where decisions are made in the open. No surprises, no jargon, no hidden margins.
Long stewardship
We stay on site through construction and return after handover, because a building is never quite finished on the day it opens.
Studio culture
Twenty-two people, one long table, and a standing Friday habit of pinning up the week and arguing kindly.
We keep the studio small on purpose. Everyone sees every project, models are made by hand, and the youngest architect in the room is expected to have an opinion. It is a slow way to work, and it is the only way we know how.
Ready when you are