A community hub, with a café, multi-use spaces and changing facilities for beach activities. The scheme was developed with extensive community involvement, particularly relevant in this sensitive residential location. The materials have been carefully selected to suit the exposed beachfront location, with Corten weathering steel and robust beach pebble-filled gabions, softened by saltwater resistant planting, anchoring the building into the landscape. With Chalk Architecture.

A simple and sustainable garden cabin, a compact space and efficient space for home-working and occasional sleeping. The cabin sits on screw piles, touching the ground with a minimal impact. Self-built, timber framed, with sheeps-wool insulation and up-cycled doors and windows. The cabin was built with minimal materials, time and cost, achieving the maximum for the least. 

This project involved the complete restoration of a dilapidated Grade 2 Listed hotel in central London. There were a number of tricky Planning and Conservation issues to overcome from the outset, involving extensive negotiation with the local authority and specialist conservation consultants. The overall aim was to discover, reveal, conserve and celebrate the building’s beautiful and significant historic details, set against a vibrant contemporary hotel interior, working with interior designers 93ft.   

The Nissen Hut at Upper Waen was originally part of the Newtown prisoner of war camp. Since it moved to its current site it has been used as an animal shelter, tool shed and artists’ studio. This low-key conversion respects the form of the existing structure, with minimal intervention to form a tiny kitchen and shower room. Self-built using timber and plywood, with no wet trades, to form an occasional living and work space.  The Nissen Hut celebrates the beauty and practicality of corrugated metal, and of the wall-less form. We are currently researching the practicalities of the generic Nissen Hut as a viable, efficient and cost-effective form of space-making.

We are currently working with Open Newtown and renowned sustainable architects Architype on this community building, on a beautiful site on the bank of the Hafren (River Severn). The building will house a community restaurant/café, resource centre and multi-function spaces. The highest environmental standards will be implemented, working with Passivhaus principles and built largely with local materials and craftspeople. Community interest groups have been widely consulted through the briefing, design and planning process. Open Newtown is a community interest group focusing on maximising the use of the town’s green spaces, encouraging sustainable outdoor activities and an awareness of the natural world. Open Newtown have limited experience of larger-scale building projects, hence asking us to assist in project managing the post-planning stages of this project. We have also involved in master-planning the town’s green spaces and in the detail of the local Active Travel scheme. Images courtesy of Architype.

Working with Circular Economy Mid-Wales to produce a flexible repair cafe and community space in the centre of Newtown. A circular economy hub, promoting re-claiming, re-cycling, up-cycling and re-use. Space to learn and develop the skills required for circular thinking. 

Re-configuration, restoration and conservation of this historically significant city-centre pub. We stripped the insensitively layered interior and exterior back to their historic fabric, repaired and stabilised where required and then left to speak for itself, alongside some contemporary interventions.

We have worked on many residential projects of varying scales and budgets, from an innovative all-glass extension to a Listed Building, to a super-efficient carefully planned tiny extension to a terraced house. In each case we work closely with the client, discussing their needs and aspirations, the prosaic and the poetic. We aim to make the best use of the available resources – budget, time and materials - re-using and re-purposing wherever possible.