A room is an argument about light, made in material.
We are not interested in style, and we are suspicious of the word. What we have instead is a set of positions we return to on every project — six of them, arrived at slowly and revised in public. They are working rules, not beliefs.
Six positions, arrived at slowly.
The six positions in full
Materiality
A material should be doing something.
Every surface in a room is holding something up, keeping something out, or taking the wear of being touched. If it is doing none of those, it is scenery. We use few materials and we use them structurally, which means we mostly cannot afford to use them badly.
Light
Daylight first, and then almost nothing.
We design the section for daylight before we place a single fitting, and we design for the worst hour rather than the best one. Artificial light is then a small, warm, mostly indirect correction: enough to work by, never enough to flatten what the room already is.
Proportion
Dimensions should come from somewhere.
Every project carries one proportional rule, chosen early and applied without exception. It might come from a block size, a structural bay, or the reach of an arm. It is not a mystical system. It is a way of making a hundred small decisions consistent when four people are drawing.
Craft
Draw what can actually be built here.
We work with the same masons, carpenters and foundries year after year, and we draw to what they can do well rather than to what a catalogue promises. A detail that requires a tolerance nobody on site can hold is not a detail, it is a complaint waiting to be filed.
Context
Climate before culture.
Before anything else we want the rainfall, the wind direction, the ground, and the hour the sun clears the neighbouring roof. Regional character follows from answering those honestly. It does not come from ornament, and it certainly does not come from a mood board.
Longevity
Design for the second owner.
Surfaces should improve with wear or at least fail gracefully. We avoid finishes that can only be maintained by replacement, we leave services accessible, and we assume that in thirty years somebody will want to change the plan. Making that easy is part of the work.
Design for the worst hour, not the best one.
[ plate 031 — north wall, 16:05 ]
Measured at 480 lux