About the practice

We began our collaboration over twenty years ago with a series of walks along the edges of London. Since then, we have approached every project as an open-ended enquiry. Our work starts from what is already there, engaging closely with inherited conditions and transforming constraints into unexpected opportunities. Design is developed through conversation, working collaboratively with our clients to help progressive institutions do more of what they do best. This combination of imagination and collaboration has led to an exceptional level of ambition in our work, recognised through two RIBA Stirling Prizes. Appleby Blue Almshouse (2025) reimagines independent urban living for older people, while Astley Castle (2013) offers a bold entwining of past and present. Appleby Blue received the 2025 RIBA Neave Brown Award for Social Housing and was the overall winner across all categories of the 2024 Housing Design Awards. Further recognition includes Stirling Prize shortlists for our re-imagining of the Courtauld Institute of Art within the Grade I listed Somerset House (2023), and for Nevill Holt Opera, a theatre built within the courtyard of a historic stable block (2019). Three of our projects have also won the Stirling Prize People’s Vote. We transformed existing buildings for Amnesty International UK, the Whitechapel Gallery, Arts Council England and Clare College, Cambridge. At a strategic scale, our work includes Walthamstow Wetlands, Bankside Urban Forest and the Olympic Park Legacy Plan. Current projects include the second phase of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Albany Theatre Deptford and the Royal College of Art.