My initial interests in Architecture and the Built Environment stemmed from the simple combination of my preferred academic interests… Art, Maths and Physics.
Creativity and precision with a purpose.
Growing up on a sub-tropical island with a fascinating micro-climate and extraordinarily varying landscapes gave me an awareness of light, space and material and their impact on our everyday lives. This awareness was heightened with the birth of my little brother, who has Down’s Syndrome. Seeing and experiencing the world through his eyes has been an invaluable catalyst in my understanding of our environment’s impact on our stimulation and well-being.
This sense of responsibility and interest in the greater good has subliminally percolated into my work. I am proud to be at the helm of a company with a mission to create sustainable communities driven by quality, buildability, and social and economic value.
Elevating our experience of the built environment and its connection to nature is what gets me up in the morning, and I aspire to help create a world where construction and infrastructure have a net positive impact on the planet and society.
I have the fortune of working on this aspiration through my day job as an Architect and Director at Resident, where our broad range of residential sector projects ranges from large-scale rural fringe masterplanning and complex urban developments to finely detailed bespoke homes.
We work with UK-based developers to create built environments with a specific emphasis on quality, buildability and sustainability. We deliver an average of 120 new build homes a year and have a proven track record of unlocking the potential of complex sites and adding real value through high-quality, cost-effective design.
Throughout my last 18 years working in the residential sector, I have found typical housing developers’ most common challenges to be:
– An extremely competitive market for finding viable sites and maximising yield.
– Cost and availability of development finance.
– Slow house sales.
– Increase and volatility of construction costs.
– Embracing true sustainability due to perceived cost.
Uncertainty in the housing market, global financial instability and competing developments are common concerns which, coupled with a lack of sites and increasing costs of construction, make for a difficult journey to create profitable built schemes that people want to buy.
Very often, funding and financing arrangements will create additional time-sensitive pressures, and developers find themselves navigating a highly complex process in which any unknown, wrong-turn or late decision will result in knocks on their final profit.
Never has been a more critical time for developers to differentiate their schemes through high-quality design and excellent workmanship.
Partnering with the right design team is invaluable. There is often tremendous and hidden potential in many sites that can only be unlocked with the proper planning and design strategy. One in which the Clients’ aspirations and values inform the design and where cost-control, buildability and sustainability are taken very seriously to result in maximised GDV and sales, aspirational homes of higher value, an improved profile within the Housing Sector and an increased turnover of delivered homes.
Architecture has the power to promote change, and this could not be more important within the context of a ‘Climate Emergency’.
It takes the dedication and hard work of an entire team of clients, consultants and contractors to deliver a successful project, especially one that seeks to move away from the conventional in pursuit of a more sustainable future.
At Resident, we are fortunate to partner with great developer clients and consultants who promote collaboration and ‘doing the right thing’ while ‘protecting the bottom line.
We greatly value this, and our team strives to remove the weight of the process, maximise our Clients’ yields and allow them to focus on the ‘after’.
I take great pride and responsibility in ensuring our diligent and personable team’s delivery allows our Clients to feel inspired, in good hands and reassured and aspired for our work to result in experience-led architecture and interiors that quietly enable and inspire life to take place long after our involvement.