We design houses, rooms and small public buildings that are calm to be in, honest about what they are made of, and quietly built to outlast us.
Selected work06 projectsSix recent projects: two houses, a library, a bakery, an office and a chapel we were trusted to keep standing. Every drawing on this page is ours.
Lakeside house · 2024
Library extension · 2023
Bakery interior · 2025
Timber office · 2022
Chapel restoration · 2021
Rooftop garden · 2026
Most of our buildings take two years from the first conversation to the keys. These are the five stages they all go through, at whatever size.
We start at your kitchen table, not ours: how you live or work, what the building must do, what it must never do, and what you can spend.
We walk the site at different hours, measure it by hand, and map the sun, wind, views, neighbours and every tree worth keeping.
Dozens of loose drawings on tracing paper, narrowed down to three honest options you can lay side by side and argue about.
A timber and card model at 1:50 you can lift the roof off, then a digital one for planning, costs and the engineers.
We choose the builder with you, then stay on site every week until the last door closes the way it should.
Eleven architects, interior designers and makers in a former pattern shop on Foundry Street.
We take on a handful of projects a year, draw everything by hand before we draw it on a computer, and stay with each building long after the photographs have been taken. Most of our clients come back; a few have become neighbours.
Founding partner, architect
Leads the houses and restorations. Believes most rooms want one more window than they get, and a smaller one.
Partner, interiors
Leads interiors and furniture. Has firm opinions about door handles and firmer ones about chairs.
Associate, project architect
Runs our timber projects from the first sketch to the final snag list, and keeps the model shop in order.
Sample entries
These awards are illustrations for a sample website; they are not real prizes.
A pencil is slower than a mouse, and that is the point. When a line costs a little effort you think before you draw it, and the building that comes out of that thinking is usually simpler, cheaper and kinder to the people inside it.
Cement repairs from the 1970s had trapped water in the stone for fifty winters. Taking them out by hand, joint by joint, and repointing in soft lime let the walls breathe again, and showed us how forgiving old buildings are when you stop fighting them.
A wall of glass shows you everything at once and then nothing more. A window placed carefully, at the height of a seat or the end of a corridor, frames one thing well and gives you a reason to walk over to it.
Tell us about the site, the people and the budget. A partner reads every enquiry and replies within five working days.
Your enquiry is with us.
Sample site: nothing was sent anywhere.