Nothing beats a beautiful hand drawn elevation.

CAD has its place in architecture, but sometimes traditional representation techniques are more sympathetic. This watercolour rendered hand drawn elevation shows off a beautiful country house we designed in the Test Valley and it really helped to sell the scheme.

We’ve been looking at the INTBAU charter recently, which contains some interesting principles on placemaking and architecture.

One of these is “through tradition we can preserve our sense of identity and counteract social alienation”. This scheme for a market town in Wiltshire aimed to replace an alien industrial style building with a building which brought a sense of identity to the riverside location, whilst being in keeping with the architectural identity of the town at large.

We're well on the way towards completion of our North Downs country house project in Surrey.

This new home is looking good as it heads towards being finished and the landscape we designed is starting to come together. Looking forward to seeing this one reach practical completion and our clients taking up residence.

The journey from drawing board to completion is often fraught one. So it is always very satisfying when that journey is a successful one.

We've been looking back through our portfolio at this country house we designed in Berkshire. Comparing the watercolour undertaken at the stage we received planning consent, to the completed photos, show that whilst there were some tweaks along the way, the result was pretty close to that envisaged.

It is never easy to deliver projects to this standard, but it is really rewarding when everything comes together and the end result lives up to expectation.

One of the difficult things when designing new homes is preventing it looking brand new when completed. High quality materials can make a building feel more grounded and have an instant character than less carefully selected materials might lack.

This country house in Wiltshire uses reclaimed bricks, natural slate and timber windows. The effect of all these, along with the carefully modelled design, is a building which looks like it has developed over time and instantly has a feeling of belonging.

Every design we produce is tailored to the site it is to be built on. Whilst we often use recognisable forms, the unique layout and detail will be specifically designed to make the most of the opportunities the location gives.

This beautiful country home in the South Downs National Park is designed to take full advantage of its elevated position. The kitchen has been designed with large plate glass windows which allow full enjoyment of the rolling views to the South.

We really appreciate Classical architecture and count ourselves lucky to often work in this style in both our new build and conservation work.

The effortless elegance of this entrance porch could never be mistaken for being of any other style. The cyma recta moulding of the porch canopy is perfectly balanced by the corbel brackets which combine ovolo, cyma recta and cavetto profiles. An understanding of these different components and their language is key to producing architecture worthy of the Classical label.

Time can be unkind to buildings, they are modified and changed as time and requirements dictate over the years. Listing a building stops further harm happening, but does not undo the wrongs of the past. Sometimes an opportunity to can arise however to do so.

The pair of buildings, one 17th century and one 19th century had been modified on the ground floor to provide a single unified frontage for a car dealership. When this closed, our clients looked to convert the building back to shops and we were tasked with designing a more appropriate pair of shopfronts, more suited to the individual buildings.

When we design homes we are always striving for beauty and elegance whilst maximising value area. Including accommodation floorspace within the roof structure can provide useful additional area, but can make the roof look quite bulky. To avoid the roof looking bulky, we often introduce dormers, rooflights and sprocketed eaves.

Introducing a sprocketed eaves can help to disguise the mass of the roof and provide a deep eaves to cast a pleasing shadow on the façade of the building. This award winning home in Wiltshire includes three storeys of accommodation but the gentle change of roof pitch (the sprocket) as it runs up helps visually lighten the mass this extra floor would normally create.

A ratio of 1:1.6180339887 doesn’t sound very glamorous, but this ratio, better known at the Golden Ratio, or the Divine Proportion underpins Classical architecture.

We take this principle very seriously and it underpins our work in the New Classical genre. This new house we designed in Hampshire has elevations carefully designed to Gold Ratio proportions. The result is a truly aesthetically pleasing family home which is a much admired part of our portfolio.

We are lucky to see some very unusual buildings in the course of our conservation work.

You wouldn’t normally expect to find an industrial chimney in the back garden of a mid-1800s country house, but our research discovered an interesting story as to why. The settlement where the house is, was a built for the workers of a lumber mill which was originally steam powered. After three catastrophic fires as a result of embers catching sawdust alight, the chimney was moved further from the engines and into the garden of the mill owner’s house where it remains to this day, now under our watchful eye.

Just because a home looks traditional, doesn’t mean it can’t be environmentally friendly. The need to consider the impact of buildings on the environment becomes ever more pressing with each passing day

We’re committed to reducing the impact of schemes using a variety of approaches. Like this country house in Wiltshire where a vaulted gallery space on the first floor has the double function of filtering light onto the items within, but also providing passive stack ventilation.

There are different approaches that can be taken when extending a listed building. Alterations can be designed to contrast the historic building or to complement the existing fabric. Careful judgement is required to develop the right strategy for the building and the client.

For this Grade II* listed property in Hampshire, the right solution was to compliment, whilst remaining subservient to the original Queen Anne house.

People often assume windows must be white, but that isn’t the case. There are many historical precedents for windows being coloured, throughout the history of architecture.

This Georgian style property we designed in the Test Valley has its windows, door case and porch painted in a pastel colour. This keeps the joinery feeling light and bright but without the starkness that brilliant white can sometimes bring.

A lot of the pleasure of traditional architecture is the aesthetic pleasure that symmetry and balance of the elevations can bring to the eye. Where buildings are joined to others as part of the same composition, differing ownerships and approaches to maintenance can lead to this balance being upset.

The careful restoration of our Grade II* listed Georgian town house project brought harmony and symmetry back to the building by treating the elevation as a whole piece rather than two separate halves. Elegance is restored.

Seeing the potential in sites can sometimes be difficult, an underwhelming house in the wrong place on the plot can cloud someone’s judgement. We relish the challenge of looking beyond the existing to create a dream property whilst is perfect for the site.

A good example of that is this project in Berkshire we designed which replaced an understated bungalow with a Classical country house. The resulting house is much more suited to the parkland like gardens and sylvan setting of the property.

Elegance doesn’t have to mean grandeur.

We strongly believe that buildings can be elegant without having to be ostentatious. A home which looks relaxed will help the family living in it, feel relaxed. An example of how we employ this idea is this metal lattice porch on the front of a new build Regency style home we designed in Wiltshire. The entrance to this classic three bay form is clear and in keeping, without being overtly grand, making the whole building look more comfortable on the village lane on which it sits.

We really enjoy working on barn conversions.

Giving an historic building, now defunct, a new lease of life is a very fulfilling project. The key is not to lose the character. Here is a before and after image of a Grade II Listed barn we converted in Hampshire. The intention was to retain as much of the historic fabric and character of the barn as possible whilst converting the barn into usable residential space. Constructed by the talented team at Moulding The Builder, we think we were successful in retaining the essence of the original building whilst at the same time reinstating lost features such as the double height threshing door openings.

Context is key to a building feeling grounded in its location.

Although inspired by its surroundings, this award winning family home in Wiltshire does not borrow directly from its delightful Georgian neighbours. The design is instead the result of of the application of general principles of Georgian architecture. The outcome is a relaxed and pared-back design which is both comfortable as a modern family home should be, but with the elegance that comes with Classical architecture.

It's good to be green, but being green shouldn't just be the preserve of new buildings, to really get on top of the problem, every building needs to be looked at carefully to see what can be done. If everybody does something, we'll be able to make a big difference. Even listed buildings can play their part.

We've recently gained planning and listed building consent for a program of restoration and upgrade works on a historic country estate in West Sussex. We have been working closely with Martin Thomas Associates M+E consultants, and a key part of the strategy worked out with them, is to introduce renewable technologies for the site. Here are some illustrations of the strategies to be utilised.