Towards full-time commitment

We (Emma and Ross) met on our first day at the University of Edinburgh in 2001. We both loved the city and stayed for our first and second degrees, with several summers in Romania running a student building project. After graduating, we spent two years in Paris working for DGT Architects before settling in London. We started doing small projects in our spare time while we were working in larger practices (Ross spent several years at David Chipperfield and Feilden Fowles) until we had large enough projects for, first Emma then Ross, to fully commit our time to the practice.

Giving value to studio time

We have two small kids and also both teach in undergrad design studios. Combining these commitments with site and other design meetings means the time we have in the studio is sometimes limited and very precious. We are each working on several projects at any one time, across all project stages. We are very lucky to have a great team (there are 4 of us) who are adept at jumping between projects, programmes and skill-sets.

A handy space

Our studio is on the 5th floor of a concrete frame warehouse building on the Regents Canal, close to Broadway Market in East London, with amazing views across the city skyline. We share the space with two other small practices and that ability to discuss projects, chat through ideas and share knowledge is really important and makes the studio a fun space to be in. We love physical material samples and a big part of what we do is testing how combinations come together. We have a whole wall of plywood shelving which we designed for our samples library – it's essential for us to have everything to hand.

Growth through collaboration

We love what we do and feel very lucky that we get to work with amazing buildings and clients. We are really interested in exploring models for how small practices, like ourselves, can collaborate on larger and more diverse projects. This is something we are exploring with the Dalston Architecture Collective, a group of 14 local architectural practices, which we feel has exciting potential.