Workbook

We have always been passionate about hand sketches and making models, sometimes even at a very large scale, and see them as essential design tools. This has become an integral part of our studio culture. Models allow us to explore carving, assembling, forming, and folding. Working with cardboard, chunks of stone, wood, steel and glass—checking, measuring, explaining and working with clients and engineers—plotting spaces and details. This three-dimensional way of working is, for us, the best way to develop and understand subtle and complex spaces and forms, whilst helping both clients, and potential funding partners, to fully visualise the finished space. It is a way of ‘being there’ and feeling what it’s like, just another tool to help us get to the essence of the thing.

Competition winning model for the Museum of Concrete Art and Design in Ingolstadt, South Germany.

 

Concept design sketch for a contemporary timber house, carefully inserted within a 12th Century ruin. The new structure is delicately intertwined with the remaining historical fabric without touching it; sitting on pads, it maximises the preservation of the medieval remains, which are transformed into external open-air rooms with built furniture
 

Marble facade cladding developed for the Musée d'Art de Nantes. Working together with a forward thinking manufacturer, a translucent and durable marble facade panel with high energetic performance was developed to support the overall design concept of natural light within the museum and to create a sensitive relaionship between the new extension and the 19th century building.
 

Model created for RIBA Forgotten Spaces design competition and exhibition at Somerset House. Working closely with our in-house model maker, an appropriate palette and specific materials were chosen to suit the context, reflecting the natural variation and patina of use contained within the site's rich history. Contemporary elements are highly engineered with soft reflectivity - a subtle contrast that lends a greater understanding to the design concept.
 

Initial concept sketch for the contemporary extension of the Grade I listed Compton Verney Art Gallery.
 

Glazed ceramic façade elements for the cladding of a new project – sample supplied by Shaws of Darwen
 

Honed beige Jura Limestone façade cladding for a new project – sample supplied by Solnhofen Stone Group Gmbh
 

Façade studies for a new project