>Approach:

Our primary concern is to enrich the daily life of those that use and those that experience our work, by creating space and built volume with a tangible presence.  Each project seeks to understand and interpret the embodied language found in both the immediate and wider, physical and social context it occupies.

Historical, geographical and cultural context will often be acknowledged in our response through both abstraction and redefinition for our time.  This can result in a response that is both knowingly, yet sometimes unknowingly, citing architectural language and tradition; perhaps through practised intuition and weight of line, or perhaps via the visceral connection we all have with architecture and the spaces in which we work, live, love and play.

Despite the studio reaching its first decade, it is very much at the beginning of a body of work, with each project seeking to represent a wider meaning, or define an architectural standpoint so as to relevantly engage with architectural debate and its progression, and leave works that will be cherished for many years to come.

A core parallel and characteristic of our work is the conscious exploration of the notion of craft; be it direct as a result of the trained on-tool hand, or abstracted and secondhand, through our increasing willingness to draw for autonomous fabrication – allowing us the potential for greater expression at a variety of scales.

We believe the work has become richer through cherished and ongoing working relationships with master craftspeople, allowing it to absorb and reframe traditions; often allowing the hand present to elevate the piece in question.

Thoughtful and comprehensive working methods are relished with our work often comprising the production of total architectural environments.

>Profile:

Established by Carl Trenfield in 2012 after several years at the revered Keith Williams Architects, working on and running key public arts buildings in the UK and Europe, the studio strives to create outstanding work as a result of a thoughtful, engaging, and rigorous working process.

In 2016, and only four years since its inception, the studio was selected for inclusion in The Architecture Foundation publication, New Architects 3 – its ‘definitive survey of the best British architects to have set up practice in the ten years since 2005′.

Traditional architectural services are offered, yet we are flexible and committed to presenting an alternative approach to architectural practice; one that can be iterative, one that continues to think critically about what we do, one that also makes, tests, and one that learns as we move forward. 

We only accept commissions that allow for sufficient time, thought and demonstrable rigour – and only those that we believe will improve upon the existing.