Architects for houses, workshops and small public buildings. We draw in section, test every idea in card, and stay with you until the keys change hands.
A plan tells you where the rooms are. A section tells you how they feel: how high a workshop has to be, how daylight falls down a stair, where the warmth collects. Every Plinth project starts with one long section, drawn at 1:50 before anything else.
A workshop, a family house and a small library. Each one was a card model on this table long before it was a building.
A joiner’s workshop on the ground floor, design studios above and a flat at the top, on a narrow infill plot. Concrete where the machines are, larch where people sit.
A two-storey family house with a steep zinc roof, limewashed walls and one wide opening to the garden. Three bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen you can see the sea from.
Four floors of books around a concrete core, wrapped in timber fins that close up towards the top. At night the reading room glows over the square like a lantern.
We walk the site with you and draw it the same week: plans, one long section, the sun path. Everything in single lines, nothing fixed.
The best option becomes a white card model at 1:100. You can lift the roof off, look down the stair and see where the light lands.
Then materials, neighbours and trees go in, and the model goes to the planning meeting, the builder and your kitchen table.
What your site and budget can really hold, in three options with a cost range.
Drawings, models and the conversation with the planners and your neighbours.
Every junction drawn, specified and priced before a builder is asked to quote.
Weekly visits, valuations and decisions made on the day, not by email a week later.
Two site visits, a measured survey, three options drawn and modelled at 1:200, and a cost range from our quantity surveyor. Fixed fee.
From concept to completion, as a percentage of the build cost, split into stages you can stop after. Typical for a new house or a workshop.
For a second opinion on a plan, a planning letter or a builder’s quote.
Fees exclude VAT. Every appointment is fixed in a short letter before any work starts.
We keep the practice small on purpose, so the person who draws your section is the person who walks your site.
“The model came to every meeting. The neighbours stopped objecting the moment they could lift the roof off and look in.”
Helen — client, Pier House · illustrative
Founding architect · design and planning
Architect · technical design and site
Architect and model maker
An extension or a garden studio is fine if it matters to you. We take on around eight projects a year, so we tell you honestly at the first call whether we have room.
Yes. The final 1:100 model is yours, with a plinth and a cover. Working models stay in the studio until the building is finished.
Of course. We prepare the drawings so that any competent builder can price them, and we are happy to talk to yours early.
For a house, usually nine to fourteen months: three for design, two to four for planning, three for technical design and tender.
Tell us a little about the project. Maren replies within two working days, usually with a date for a first site visit.