ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
Shady Nook
A house for a family situated in a site of biological importance noted for its beautiful ancient woodland. The developing designs use passive house prinicpals to enable low energy consumption when in use, along with the provision for renewable energy production on site. We are working to ensure locally sourced, low carbon materials are used in the construction and the designs add to the picturesque nature of this unique place.
Decarbonise Your House Now!
Exhibition and Guide
Exhibition and Guide
By 2050, all our homes need to be net carbon zero the ‘Decarbonise Your House Now!’ exhibition explains ways to reduce the environmental impact of our homes and explores the creative architectural potential of how it might be done.
It is the culmination of a year-long research project funded by the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Click to download the exhibition guide and research here
Photograph by Alex Macdougall©
Manchester Ceramics Collective
A feasability study exploring how alterations to the existing loft could transform the ceramicists’ working space to provide a flexible studio / teaching and exhibition space.
Lambeth Pavilion
As you cross Lambeth Bridge a stripy, crenelated pavilion glistens amongst the trees. The rain rushes along its winged roof, cascading into a small pond in front of The Garden Museum. Gardeners, sheltering from a passing shower, chat with cups of tea beneath the canopy. Passing beneath the pavilion, you notice it’s curious stone footings, resting gently on the ground, intending little disturbance to the centuries of archaeology and tree roots beneath. The rough cut stones form the base of the structure, bridging between land, building and garden. It is a celebration of the sustainable shaping of nature as well as a simple shelter from it.
Chorlton Picture House
This project was initiated by Chorlton Community Land Trust in a bid to buy a prominent local landmark in the centre of town to avoid the land being developed into soulless retirement flats. The building has an unusual history, built in the early 1920s as a cinema, it’s tiered seats are currently occupied by the coffins of Co-op Funeralcare. The original neo-baroque facade was wrapped in a brick skin in the midst of minimal ‘60s modernism.
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Our research sought to reveal the potential of the structure hidden within. The clay model evokes the current fragility of the existing structures fate, whilst new elements are added to signify its return to public life - a balcony overlooking the street and a large opulent roof light above the new community hall. The project was part of a funding campaign which raised £350k.
London Festival of Architecture
Curating Concourses
A part of 6 teams shortlisted for the London Festival of Architecture we proposed a display structure as a kit of parts, easy to source and quick to assemble for train station exhibitions, transported by rail across the UK. Bolt together the steel frame, fill the gabion with ballast and rivet the aluminium exhibition panels in place and the exhibition unfolds.
Using reclaimed racking angles, track ballast or construction waste and endlessly adaptable and reprintable aluminum composite boards, the structure is sturdy, economical, reusable and recyclable.
The video tells the story of the kit of parts traveling up and down the country; the individual modules arranged to suit each station and the changing exhibition content. The all weather structure forms a billboard, a signal box and ends up in-the round, as a backdrop to a choir.
Editional Studio
Our Studio! We converted a former balloon shop into our studio space on Beech Road in Chorlton. Stripping out the old fittings, uncovering windows and restoring the original charm of the shop. We designed the frontage and interiors, working in a frugal way, leaving the old floor boards and the white plaster exposed, allowing the new insertions and furniture to speak.
As well as serving as the studio, we want to be part of the community in which we live and to make architecture more accessible . We are (normally) open and you’re most welcome to drop in to view the ever changing display of work-in-progess
Photographs by Zora Kuettner©
Brookhouse Kitchen, Kent
The design of two interiors in a picturesque Grade II listed tudor cottage for a cookery writer. Originally built as four workers cottages, the house has gradually merged in to a rambling sequence of rooms. The project reinforces this process, removing a wall between the kitchen and hallway opening up the space at the heart of the house. Two offset chamfered timber posts were inserted and a thin, red concrete floor cast. Bespoke oak panelled kitchen units were designed to meld around the crooked interior.
Collaborators : James Hills
Photographs by James Hills©
William Sutton Prize
The Roving Retrofit Workshop
A project that works with housing associations and residents to retrofit and upgrade their homes by providing access to knowledge, skills and training from an expert design and build team. Through hands-on workshops, residents can reduce their carbon consumption and energy bills and go on to train to undertake construction work and qualify as green retrofit contractors.
Highly Commended 2021
The Roving Retrofit Comes to Town!
Antepavillion Competition Entry 2019
Cast in pewter, the sculpture borrows from functional forms of the industrial past repurposed into a delicate, decorative crown above the wharf. It is a monument to the way the aesthetics of industry are harnessed by the forces of regeneration, a fragile display of a broader political nostalgia.
The sculpture is made on site; the crucible lit, the pewter melted and the modulated structure cast. It acts as both a beacon and a celebration of making. The beauty of the material is that it can be endlessly re-cast and an integral part of this proposal is its re-making. Each month, one segment is transformed into tablewares or souvenirs for sale and so the antepavilion continues.
The installation is only complete when it’s no longer there. The proposal revels in inevitable temporariness, celebrating making, disassembly and dissemination, as much as the installation itself.
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Artist Co-Housing, Yorkshire
The design of six studio houses aiming to attract young creatives to a remote area of the Yorkshire Dales to live and work collectively.
Located on a prominent corner, a small shop acts as a grand front door to the building and exhibits the work of resident artists & makers. Ground floor work spaces open out through tall workshop doors on to a communal yard between the two buildings; a sheltered space for large scale working and an area for collective celebration.
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Rough rubble stone walls, typical of the locality create a sturdy base ready for knocking around in the workshop, whilst the timber frame structure is left exposed in the living spaces above. The living rooms within the roof have expansive views over the hills.
Barbican Exhibition, London
Outreach + Education
As part of an education outreach programme the exhibition ´Towards the Mean : Sampling Britishness Today’ was designed for Barbican Centre, London.
Inspired by the work of Francis Galton, photographic portraits were taken in the photobooth and projected as a layered composition on to the wall of the entrance foyer. This striking collage of portraits allows the viewer to consider the image of what it is to be British today. The work was produced in collaboration with the artist Marianne Holm Hansen and electronic score accompanied the piece by musicians of The Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Garden Room Extension
A modest extension to a private house, improving the organisation of the ground floor and its relationship with the garden. Inspired by the client’s fondness of an existing serving hatch, the garden room retains as much of the existing structure as possible to reduce material consumption as well as costs, but in doing so creates intricately woven spaces and layered look-throughs. A large opening is made in front of the cooker that steps down to form a bench for sitting and eating whilst enjoying the view.
