The practice has designed two studios for artists: one studio attached to a house & the other freestanding. The unique quality of the exterior & interior of these buildings fascinate us. The Connearn Studio is a purpose built artist’s workspace located in Deptford. The design process was collaborative, experimental & progressively defined by both drawing & 1:1 modelling insitu. Existing site conditions & local planning restrictions necessitated extensive remodelling & adjustment of ground levels to achieve internal height & led to the development of interior & exterior reflectors to balance the interior lighting. The studio was self-built with all major components manufactured on site. The building is a 4m cube, flanked on two sides by integral storage enclosures. The north east facing wall & roof are glazed galvanised frames. The structural frame is made from recycled steel, infilled with recycled insulated wooden cassettes & supported on a concrete raft containing a heated slab. The interior skin is birch ply, the exterior cladding burnt Sugi (Cryptomeria Japonica. The lower roof is planted with sedum. The building core is made entirely from recycled materials. It will generate power from gridlinked photovoltaic panels (not yet installed). Rainwater is recycled in the landscaping. The qualities of wood are exploited in different ways. On the interior, birch ply is used flush jointed & close to sheet size to create a sheer grid which both delineates the volume & controls the placement of the various openings & articulated surfaces. Great care is taken with the fixing & pelleting of the surface & matching of the veneer surfaces to give a character of scale-less solidity, warmth & calm. All opening panels to the walls hinge or pivot to fit flush & all architraves are avoided. A number of furniture elements, e.g. a drawing easel, hinge out of the wall surface. Features such as opening ventilation panels & structural support beams are also integrated flush with the surface. Only essential lines are therefore expressed on the interior. On the exterior small dimension sawn staves of burnt Sugi are arranged as a ventilated rain screen. The staves are arranged vertically to enhance the height of the elevations & to provide a rich & close grained visual texture appropriate to the urban garden setting. Three wood sizes are combined to introduce visual variation in the cladding system. The exterior cladding is hung on a split batten system which removes all fixings from sight. The burning of the surface acts to preserve the wood & to accentuate the grain. The grain is raised slightly & adds contrast to & plays off against the flatness of the interior. Though relatively small in scale & unostentatious in its materials & treatment, the studio takes its place in a tradition of purpose built structures which use contemporary materials & techniques to the best advantage, to define & exemplify solutions to broader ranging architectural & technical questions.