Our Story


It all started with just me, Fred, working evenings, weekends and early mornings, squeezing a series of domestic extensions into tight spots in London and learning how to get a lot done without spending much.

What mattered to me then – and still matters to me now – is taking full responsibility for everything: the design, the technical aspects, and the construction phase. I didn’t want to dip in with a design for a planning application and then dip out again, because the vision of a project so easily gets diluted if you’re not there to see it through and make the vision a reality.

The other thing that quickly became clear was how important the client-architect relationship is. When it’s given time to mature over the course of the project it takes both the day-to-day experience and the final outcome to a completely different level.

‘Fred is supremely organised, has great contacts, faultless attention to detail, responsive to the point of weirdness and is on your side. He offers practical, emotional and spiritual support in the possible hell-slide that this process could become if attempted without such a guru.’

Maida Vale House Clients


By now it was 2013, and with a small but perfectly formed portfolio under my belt, I moved out of London to set up both home and studio in Twyford in the Thames Valley.

Here I was up against different and very welcome constraints – the sensitive landscape of the Chilterns and the backdrop of the Thames. I loved working with listed buildings and in conservation areas, and I was up for the challenge of the larger rural projects that were coming my way. The river was a big draw too, as much for the fishing as for the pleasure of working close to its banks.

‘His creative ideas and attention to detail never faltered right to the end and his ability to organise both myself and the contractor meant we achieved amazing results virtually pain free. The fact that we ended the project as friends is a testament to Fred’s professionalism along the way.’

St. John’s Wood House Clients

We’ve grown a lot since then, both in depth and in scope. I say ‘we’ because you’ll meet Joely too, a trainee Architect who brings energy, curiosity and a different perspective to the studio.

Away from the studio I am Chair of RIBA Berkshire and Vice Chair of the Reading Borough Council Design Review Panel, helping shape the future of both my adopted home county and hometown. I am an RIBA Student Mentor and RIBA Professional Examiner, too, helping guide future architects on their way through the profession.

And what else of the future? We’ll always be deliberately small, up for a challenge, and ready for what might be just around the corner.

‘We loved working with Fred. He handled all the relationships on site brilliantly, and if there was the slightest issue, he would sort it. He really believed in what he was doing, and it showed – in the way he listened to us, and in the care he took over every detail.’

Weir Grove House Clients

Accolades


Our first new-build home, Hackney Backhouse, won several awards and was shortlisted for the Manser Medal. Cherry Tree House won both Best Modern Building at the Chilterns Design Awards and Best Large Extension at the British Homes Awards, whose judges described it as ‘a masterpiece’.

Our work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, shown on TV, and published in books, magazines and newspapers, including The Times, The Sunday Times, the Evening Standard, RIBA Journal, Architecture Today, Architectural Design, Grand Designs and Wallpaper.

2021 was our ten-year anniversary, and although we didn’t feel particularly new anymore, we were young enough to make it into New Architects 4, a book by The Architecture Foundation ‘surveying the best British architectural practices established in the past ten years’. That felt like a stamp of approval and a celebration of everything we’d achieved.

Approach