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What we believe
These are the materials, systems and methods that shape our thinking, touching on the construction systems we believe in, the finishes we want to live with, and the people we trust to build them.
We're sharing them for a simple reason: most of what's wrong with how we build is hidden. Carbon buried in blockwork. Interiors sealed against the air they should breathe. Details value-engineered away when nobody's looking. We think the answer starts with being open about what we'd rather build with, and why.
We'll be honest about where we stand. Some of these materials and systems we've specified and built. Others we've proposed and lost to cost. Others still we're committed to introducing on the right project, with the right client, because better buildings need clients willing to build them.
This page is an invitation. If you share these convictions, we'd like to hear from you.
How We Build
Blokbuild
We believe in prefabricated construction — timber-based, built precisely in a factory, erected fast and clean on site, and far less carbon-intensive than traditional masonry. Our first step into it was a SIPs system on a project in Shenfield. The principle was right, but the reality wasn't: the panels were insulated with oil-based PIR, the process was piecemeal, and third-party installers had little stake in the outcome.
So we went looking for better, and found Blokbuild. Their cassettes are insulated with wood fibre rather than PIR — a breathable, renewable material that manages moisture and holds back summer heat far better than its oil-based equivalent. Just as importantly, they're hands-on from the start and install their own system, so the people who designed it are the people who build it.
We specified Blokbuild on a recent project. The client ultimately chose a conventional build on cost grounds — but it's a system we believe in, and one we're committed to bringing to the right project.
Visit Blokbuild
Porotherm
Porotherm is a clay block system, and proof that masonry doesn't have to mean high carbon. Made from a natural, breathable material, it carries markedly lower embodied carbon than aircrete or concrete block, and uses up to 95% less water in laying and 60% less in its manufacture.
Built as a single monolithic leaf, it brings high thermal mass and low thermal bridging, a wall that stays cool in summer and holds warmth in winter, with fewer of the weak points where heat escapes conventional construction. It has a 150-year design life, and at the end of it the material can be fully recycled.
We haven't yet built with Porotherm but it's a system we're actively looking to introduce on the right project, for clients who want the solidity and breathability of masonry without the carbon penalty.
Visit Porotherm to find out more.
Acara — Naturheld Wood Fibre Insulation
Better-insulated homes are warmer, quieter and cheaper to run — but there's a catch the industry is only now reckoning with. Seal a building tightly with the wrong materials and moisture in the indoor air has nowhere to go. The result, increasingly, is mould: a problem of insulation without breathability.
Wood fibre is the answer we trust. It's vapour-open, so the wall can breathe — drawing moisture naturally out of the structure rather than trapping it, protecting both the people inside and the fabric of the building itself. It insulates against winter cold and summer heat alike, and because it's made from the waste of felled timber, using the whole log, it avoids the high embodied carbon of oil-based insulations like PIR. Acara's Naturheld product is, remarkably, carbon-negative.
It's the same wood fibre principle that drew us to Blokbuild — and a material we're committed to specifying wherever the building fabric allows.
Visit Acara Concepts
How We Finish
Internorm
A fabric-first building deserves windows to match. Having built an airtight, breathable envelope, it makes no sense to lose that performance at the openings. We specify windows that keep warmth in during winter and heat out during summer, rather than treating glazing as an afterthought.
Internorm's triple-glazed systems do exactly that. But the window itself is only half the story. Just as important is how it is installed: set into openings detailed to eliminate draughts and protect the critical junction between wall and window frame, where so many buildings quietly fail over time. Getting that junction right is one of the foundations of Passivhaus detailing, and one of the things that separates a window that performs on paper from one that performs for decades.
It is a detail most people never think to ask about. Ask us.
Clayworks
The wall does not end at the plaster. That is a principle we apply from the insulation outward, and it applies equally to what goes on the inside face. A breathable wall build-up only performs as intended if every layer can pass moisture through it. A vapour-barrier paint or a synthetic finish at the final coat undermines everything behind it.
Clay plaster is the natural conclusion to a vapour-open wall. Made from earth, it regulates humidity by absorbing and releasing moisture from the internal air, which means lower condensation, less risk of mould, and a healthier internal environment to live in. It has been used for thousands of years for exactly this reason. Clayworks have spent twenty years refining that material into a contemporary specification product, available in a range of textures and colours that sit comfortably alongside modern architecture.
We have not yet specified Clayworks on a completed project, but it is the natural finish for the kind of walls we are working to build, and one we are committed to introducing on the right project.
Hendel & Hendel
Architecture is experienced through every sense, including touch. We spend considerable time thinking about light, space and material as visual experiences, but how a building feels in the hand is equally telling. The door handle is the most repeated physical interaction between a person and a building. Its weight, its texture, the resistance of its mechanism: these things communicate the quality of everything around them before a room is even entered.
Hendel & Hendel make hardware that understands this. Their handles, hinges and cabinet furniture are made from solid brass, finished by hand across thirty signature options, and designed with the kind of considered restraint that sits quietly alongside architecture rather than competing with it. They work as well on modest cabinetry as they do on bespoke joinery, which means specifying them is not a luxury reserved for the highest budgets. It is a decision about the quality of the daily experience, made once, that lasts the life of the building.
We have used Hendel & Hendel hardware at Studio PDP on high-specification London projects, and they are the standard we bring to our own specifications.
This page is an invitation. If you share these convictions, we would like to hear from you.
Recent work
We'd love to hear from you.
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