Building a Room

An architect's plans are really just a shell. A blank canvas. Some people relish that, they have a clear vision and the confidence to execute it. But many find it genuinely hard, and the result is a room that never quite becomes what it could have been.

The spaces that tend to get it right are the ones we pay to visit. Hotels, bars, restaurants. Places where someone has thought carefully about how the room feels at different times of day, how materials sit together, how light moves across a surface. That sensibility doesn't have to stay in the hospitality industry. It can come home.

This isn't about covering everything in the most expensive material or making a statement for its own sake. My approach is quieter than that. Soft minimalism, warm contrast, texture and imperfection. Plaster that changes as the light moves across it. Brass, concrete, stone and natural surfaces used carefully rather than everywhere. Joinery that borrows from well-proportioned classical forms or the deliberate rawness of industrial and brutalist reference. Spaces that feel considered without announcing themselves.

Things can also borrow from what surrounds them. Referencing the exterior cladding of a building on the inside so a space flows rather than stops at the threshold. Materials that connect a room to its context rather than ignoring it.

This is also not about ostentation. A dedicated cinema room with blackout blinds and a sign on the door is one kind of ambition. It's not mine. The spaces I'm drawn to are lived in across the whole day, socially versatile, and quietly extraordinary rather than loudly expensive. A room that happens to have a projector and a serious sound system should still feel like somewhere you'd want to sit with a drink at noon. That quality, understated but considered, is harder to achieve than it looks. It's also more lasting.

I work across lighting, acoustics, materials, joinery profiles, furniture and finish. Some of what I specify I supply. Some I source for a project. Some I simply recommend. You're not limited to one supplier's range or one designer's catalogue. The decisions that make the biggest difference are rarely the most expensive ones. They just need to be made early, and by someone who notices them.

A lot of what I recommend I've lived with myself. The barn conversion and studio in Harrogate are partly a testing ground for that thinking. If you want to understand what the work looks like in practice, come and see it.

Conceptualisation starts with a moodboard and a conversation about how you actually want the space to feel.