Feilden Fowles is a leading young architecture practice, committed to sustainable design. Our work ranges from furniture design and installations through to buildings and urban research with current projects in housing, education, the commercial sector, masterplanning and the arts. The practice engages in a multi-disciplinary approach through early collaboration with designers, trades and complimentary professions. Projects are used to celebrate the physical qualities of materials and their inherent structural properties, working via models and prototypes, to result in a rich and experiential architecture.

Our investigation of each project begins by developing an intimate understanding of both place and people, which leads to our sensitive response to the vernacular and local context of proposals that are routed in their rural landscape or urban setting. Projects emerge from a clear concept and legible diagram, developed through an inventive exploration of existing typologies and modes of construction, and detailed with precision and subtlety. Form may be inspired by geology, natural history or the vernacular of an area but is honed and refined by human necessity.

Our studio serves as the creative hub of the practice and is energetic and experimental; we enjoy passionate discussions about our designs and put a lot of energy into testing our ideas.

As a practice we believe in collaboration in its widest sense and to this end regularly invite other designers to share our space and participate in design reviews. We find this multidisciplinary approach to be mutually beneficial, enriching the work produced by each side. We share our building with fashion designers, sculptors, photographers and industrial designers. The creative networks in the area are a rich source of young design talent, and we are looking forward to working alongside an increasing number of diverse and exciting professionals.

In 2010 we moved into our current home, an old shoe factory in East London. We converted the space ourselves, stripping back to the inherent form and making our own furniture. More recently we created a dedicating model-making workshop. The raw structure of the space is being refined year-on-year in order to provide improved thermal performance and to test materials we are interested in, while the metal framed windows and fair faced concrete structure retain the original industrial character. We aim to lead by example, reducing energy usage through investing and experimenting with the existing building fabric. There are plans to expand the studio in the near future to give us more room for our growing practice and to allow greater experimentation.