From the site plan

to the door handle

Wherever a project is, the same rule applies. The people who design the work carry it through construction, and the studio builds each team around the demands of the place. Most projects draw on all four capabilities, and some need only one.

The work crosses typologies as well as borders. Hospitality, residential, workplace, retail and large-scale development all pass through the same four capabilities.

Architecture

The firm designs new buildings, extensions and adaptive reuse across sectors and climates. The site, climate, and the way people already use the place set the terms of the design.

Every building begins with study rather than with a concept. The studio maps the wind, sun, water and movement across the ground, and it records what the place already does well. Form follows from these conditions, so two projects in two climates produce two different buildings, even when the brief is the same.

Structure and space are drawn together from the first sketch. The element that holds the building up usually also gives it its character, which keeps the architecture honest and keeps the cost of decoration low. The studio tests geometry in physical models before committing to it, and tests it again with the engineers and the people who will build it.

Interiors

We design interiors for hospitality, residential, workplace, retail and public spaces, both as part of its own buildings and inside buildings by others. In both cases the interior is treated as architecture at a nearer distance, where the same decisions about volume, light and material meet the body directly.

When the studio designs the building, the interior develops with it. Volume, light, colour and finish are decided while the plans can still change, because that is the point at which they can be decided well. Ceiling heights, window positions and material junctions are interior decisions as much as architectural ones, and drawing them together removes the seams between the two.

Material decisions are made in the real conditions of the project. Samples are ordered early and judged in the daylight of the actual room, and full-size mock-ups of key junctions are built before the order is placed. The interiors are drawn to the same level of detail as the buildings, down to the fixing that no one will ever see.

Furniture

The studio designs seating, tables, storage, lighting and joinery, and it prototypes them with the fabricators it builds with. Most pieces begin inside a project, designed for a specific room at a dimension that suits that room alone. Some go on to further production when a piece proves itself in use.

Pieces are usually made for a specific room, at a dimension that only makes sense there. What the work at this scale gives back is a fluency in material and detail that ends up in the larger projects.

Prototyping happens on the workshop floor rather than on the screen. Profiles are adjusted with the maker, joints are tested by hand, and a piece is approved only after people have sat on it, leaned on it and moved it. The studio treats the fabricator as a design partner, and many pieces improve because the maker suggested a better way.

Construction coordination

The studio stays on site through construction, working with contractors, consultants and trades across different building cultures. Codes, sequences, crafts and site practices differ from place to place, so the studio learns the local way of building on every project and designs within it rather than against it.

Details are agreed with the people who will execute them while the details are still drawings. The mason, the fabricator and the specialist trades see the drawings early, and their objections change the design before the design reaches site. This costs time at the start of a project and saves far more of it at the end.

Mock-ups are treated as design work rather than as checks. Key junctions, finishes and assemblies are built at full size on site, judged in the real light and weather, and adjusted before the order is placed.