Mission

Objectives

Method

  • learn – understand the place
  • listen to users, clients, authorities – what are the issues?
  • be open and accountable
  • imagine – including the obvious
  • draw, refine, redraw – be responsible for design
  • gather a skilled team and motivate them
  • identify risks and manage them
  • manage construction professionally and fairly
  • deliver a good result on time and budget
  • monitor results and support buildings in use.

Approach

  • a city is an act of collective imagination
  • resources follow ideas
  • love what you do not know in order to understand it, a virtuous spiral
  • value-add in practical, lateral thinking
  • listen
  • buildings are flexible
  • dare to dream
  • a site has a history, poetry, living experience, value: visible and invisible
  • be buildable, practical
  • listen to the construction team
  • improve the service.

Leading to

  • rich designs pared down to lasting essentials, encouraging lively inhabitation in unexpected ways
  • successful, popular, challenging spaces that enhance dignity of life for those who inhabit them
  • the sound of a happily inhabited building
  • sustainability and choice in future
  • chaos and order in balance: doing enough – serendipity
  • natural lighting and ventilation
  • low energy, climate adaptive buildings.

Measure

  • user appraisals before and after
  • energy use designed and constructed
  • performance of the building in use.