On 18 September 2014, eight hydraulic jacks, several towers of hardwood blocks and a group of people trying to look considerably calmer than they felt, gathered beneath one of the Thames’s most recognisable buildings, and they were ready to raise the roof – and the ceilings, the doors, the walls, infact the whole kit and […]
The right setting and generous rooms do not automatically make a property feel like home. If the routes between everyday spaces feel awkward, the lighting is gloomy and black timber beams make the atmosphere oppressive, even a promising country house can feel unwelcoming. For Week 27 of our #40Projects40Weeks series, we are looking at how […]
The brief for Princes Road was clear, take a neglected, outdated end-terrace and renovate it on a tight budget, with the aim of maximising the value and selling for more than any other two-bedroom house on the street. There was no opportunity to extend and no budget for errors. The project needed an intelligent layout, […]
Zenith takes its place in our series on 13 August, as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its annual peak. As ‘zenith’ describes both the point in the sky directly overhead and the highest point or peak, the timing feels particularly fitting for a house set high on a steep Cheltenham hillside. The challenge of building […]
When our client decided to swap London for a country home, friendship gave her a very good reason to Skenfrith. The Old Shop had already caught her imagination, despite being virtually derelict and requiring considerably more work than a straightforward move might normally involve. She could see beyond its dilapidated condition and had fallen in […]
Colour-changing lighting, a glowing glass staircase and the same poured resin flooring specification used for the new floor at The Dorchester were hardly conventional choices for a family home in 2008, but conventional was never what the open-minded clients at Charlton Park Gate were looking for. For Week 21 of our #40Projects40Weeks series, we are […]
For Week 20 of our #40Projects40Weeks series, we have reached the halfway point, so it felt only right to do something a little different. A three-for-one, special, bumper edition. This week, we are looking at The Ones That Got Away: three architecture projects that had every chance of success, but for reasons beyond the control […]
Lots of projects involve repairs, planning policy and careful heritage detailing. This one had all of that, plus champagne bubbles on the ceiling and a police line-up in the boys’ toilets. For Week 19 of our #40Projects40Weeks series, we are revisiting Saxtys in Hereford, a Hereford hospitality refurbishment from 2007 that reworked a well-established restaurant, […]
Some buildings ask politely for a second chance, the Watershed arrived with water around its ankles and challenged us to do something useful with it. For Week 18 of our 40 Projects in 40 Weeks series, we are deep diving into The Watershed, a Hereford heritage conversion that transformed an old, dilapidated single-storey riverside warehouse […]
Some projects have unusual beginnings and this one started with RRA’s Mark Powles telling a young developer that he didn’t need an architect for his project. Unusual sales technique, granted. For Week 17 of our 40 Projects in 40 Weeks series, we are revisiting Vespers, a contemporary Cheltenham SIPs house from 2019. It is […]
