We ask how design can improve the world around us, whether that’s through a pocket park or a mixed-use development. Places are best understood first-hand: how environments are used, how people move through them.
Evidence-led Design
When Changi Airport appointed us to design Terminal 4, the client said the decision hinged on how we thought about people, and on our willingness to arrive without a fixed idea of what a terminal should be. That instinct is what we hire for, and what we protect.
We have a team in-house commercial strategists, who work with the design teams, bringing catchment analysis, trading models and operator insight to the first conversation. The evidence tests the design; the design tests what the evidence assumes.
Our Journey
We started out in 1947 designing cow sheds in Nottinghamshire. Now in our second generation as a family-run business, we’ve grown into a global studio with over 300 people. During this time, we’ve built places that have shaped how cities have grown and given communities somewhere they want to be. We’re most proud of how these places have come to mean something to the cities and people that have embraced them.
Places that last
We design new buildings to last and where a building already exists, we merge the old with the new. Longevity depends on design that ages well, on communities who adopt a place as their own, and on the commercial health that keeps the doors open. We design for all three.
As placemakers we make masterplans and landscapes that support biodiversity alongside human wellbeing. Working across grasslands in Uzbekistan to Middle Eastern deserts and the tropics of Singapore, we prioritise context-specific, nature-based solutions rather than importing a template. In Nigeria we designed a flood-resilient masterplan using nature-based solutions in place of hard engineering and at 18 Cross in Singapore, we retained 99% of the existing podium structure, reducing embodied carbon and improving a building that would otherwise have come down.
We design for efficient operational performance. Our Hysan Place scheme was the first shopping centre in Hong Kong and Greater China to achieve LEED Platinum. Since then, ONE INDIGO in Beijing, Bujairi Terrace in Diriyah and the Western Equity Investment Fund headquarters in Chengdu have all achieved the same certification.
Awards
Our work has been recognised by the World Architecture Festival, MIPIM, the International Property Awards and REARD, and by the RIBA China awards.
Our Awards
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