Zooming in and out repeatedly, working at every scale of a design, stops us forgetting that we are making real objects and spaces, which people are going to occupy and use, not drawing lines on paper.
A favourite technique of Ash Sakula, from the start of the design process, is to zoom in and out repeatedly. Whether we are working with a single house or drawing up a masterplan, we are considering the broad-brush vision while also attending to the detail of a light fitting, a bench or the view from a window. It stops us forgetting that we are making real objects and spaces, which people are going to occupy and use, not drawing lines on paper.Our sense of the tactile, the haptic qualities and lived experience of our designs is highly attuned. In 25 years of working and travelling together, as a practice, we have amassed a library of references that speak about colour, texture, contrast, provenance, materials and manufacture. We are drawn to the rough and the handmade, in preference to the slick or machine-manufactured and this, in our experience, also strikes a chord with the users of our buildings.
We enjoy experimenting with colours and inventing new materials. We have created unusual effects from unpromising materials such as profiled plastic, recycled fabric or chain-link fencing. We also celebrate the ordinariness of the everyday in our choices of brick, timber windows and traditional front doors.Rather than thinking about our buildings as isolated objects, which it is easy to do in architectural design, we strive to soften, modify and improve the naked architectural intent by making the link between buildings, their surroundings and their landscape intrinsic to their design. For this reason, we identify ourselves as landscapists, as well as architects, and have often provided landscape design services alongside architectural ones.
The Phoenix is a productive, sustainable, equitable and largely car-free neighbourhood of 700 homes on a former industrial site in Lewes.
Mixed tenure homes in a traditional seaside town.
An alternative vision for replacing a tired 1960s shopping precinct in Norwich
Creating a convivial neighbourhood of streets and houses on a riverside site in Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Opening a new chapter for Cardiff’s radical cultural hub.
A radical reappraisal of spatial priorities in a minimum-sized apartment.
Smart creative co-working regenerates the ex-industrial wastelands of Cardiff Bay.
Transforming a 3-bedroom house with an outdoor toilet into a modern, airy and bright 4-bedroom home through an extension of only 6.5 sqm
Upper and Old Saltings, converted separately, both share a DNA that prioritises on convivial relaxation.
26 new homes for the Clapton Park Estate in Hackney, east London
Restoring a listed Georgian house to make a home and gallery for an art collector.
Constructing a self-built arts village on derelict land in east London.
Turning a redundant council office in Leicester into a multi-use theatre for a school and its community.
A building designed to support, enable and celebrate carnival arts.
Making creative co-working space for the arts in Hackney.
A flexible, informal and profitable flagship store
Helping a Georgian house to connect with its garden.
Low-carbon, zero-energy homes for social rent in Hampshire.
Co-creating new communities; getting two sides of the tracks to talk to each other.
A collaborative project turned a warren of small rooms into a spacious, light-filled home.
Reconnecting a large family home to its garden and basement.
Spatial complexity in a tiny London mews.
