design.
We start by listening. Analysis first, then a brief tight enough to build from — written with the client, not for them. Then a method assembled for the project in front of us.
a tight brief is the first design.
Every project starts with analysis — the site, the climate, the people, the budget, what is already there. Then we sit with the client and narrow it down, until the brief says exactly what the project is for. We listen carefully for the essence of a project: the one thing it has to get right.
We call the way we read a place regional tectonics: ten lenses, from the ground under the site to who will look after the thing once it’s built. read the essay →
a toolkit of approaches.
In the workshop every part gets the right tool, and we think the same way. Some questions need evidence first — we work bottom-up, from what is actually there. Others need a rule we can test — we work top-down, from an idea outwards. There is no standard sequence: each project gets its own set of approaches, put together for the job in front of us.
three disciplines. one loop.
Projects raise the questions. Research answers some of them. Teaching tests the answers on the next generation — and sends people and fresh eyes back into practice.
every project, on one map.
Every project we’ve made, plotted by discipline — where design, fabrication, build-tech and the lab overlap. Hover a point to see the project; click through to read it.
off the shelf, and our own.
Rhino and Grasshopper are where everything is drawn. When the tool we need doesn’t exist, we write it — and some of those are now free for anyone to use.
