House Orientation and Daylighting: How to Point a Home at the Sun, Shade It, and Keep Your Privacy
House orientation is the cheapest decision in architecture and the one people most often get wrong. It costs nothing to turn a plan ninety degrees…
Courtyard House Design: How an Open Square in the Middle of a Home Cools It, Shades It and Changes How You Live
Courtyard house design is one of the oldest answers to a modern problem: how do you keep a home comfortable without running the air conditioner…
Fire-Resistant Home Design: Materials, Shape, Space and Glass That Give a House a Fighting Chance
Fire-resistant home design has quietly moved from “nice to think about if you live near a forest” to something insurers, planners and buyers ask about…
Home Soundproofing: How to Stop Noise Getting In (or Out) Without Wasting Money
Home soundproofing is one of those jobs people put off until the night they can hear every word of the neighbour’s phone call. Then they…
Office Amenities in Demand: What Tenants and Staff Actually Look For, and How to Prioritise It in a Fit-Out
Office amenities have stopped being decoration on a brochure and started deciding who signs the lease. Ask a tenant what they want from a new…
Resin Driveways: What They Cost, Where the Rules Bite and How to Make One Lift Your Whole Front Elevation
Resin driveways have quietly taken over the front of British streets, and plenty of other places too. The appeal is easy to see: a smooth,…
Pivot Door Design: How to Get a Dramatic Entrance That Still Keeps the Rain Out
A pivot door is the quickest way I know to change how a house looks from the street. Same walls, same roof, same windows, and…
Listening Lounge Design: How to Build a Room for Records, Books and Doing Nothing
A listening lounge is the room where the phone isn’t welcome and the record is. Nobody needs a grand space for it. Most people who…
Ceiling Design: How to Use the Fifth Wall to Give a Room Character
Ceiling design is usually the last thing anyone decides, and by then the budget has gone on the sofa. So the biggest surface in the…
Neuro-Inclusive Office Design: How Light, Sound and Layout Decide Who Can Do Their Best Work
Neuro-inclusive office design starts from an uncomfortable observation: the standard open-plan floor was drawn for an imaginary average worker, and a large share of real…