Most
of our work is on houses, so style and degree of change come
from a creative response to client requirements.
The virtue of the suburbs
is their diversity. Every man's home is his castle, and it is
built in the style that he feels most suits him. Of course clients
buy a house for its location but they come to us to transform,
extend and remodel it. We take equal satisfaction in dramatic
alterations that make a house distinctive and the projects that
retain an existing style in an invisible extension.
Does
this compromise design? Certainly it means that every house
has different demands. Some can constrain but others liberate
ideas dramatically. Then the form comes from the house's own
needs and imposes itself on clients and architect alike.
We take a pride
in working intimately with our clients, expressing their requirements
and using whatever design or presentation tools are most appropriate
for the circumstances. So card models are used as often as computer
equivalents, and we have been known to lay out alterations with
pink string pinned to the ceiling. Awareness of the space is
the stuff of discussion, for layman as much as for professional.
