The Carbon Net Zero school building at Dulwich College is designed through extensive pupil and teacher participation. Combining existing structures with new construction, the new Junior and Lower School design focuses on circulation spaces, promoting interaction and providing areas for informal discussions, outdoor learning, and holistic education.

An incongruous 1950s house, extended up and out; wrapped in a brick skin. The design balances the needs of a large family with conservation area requirements. Its asymmetrical form draws reference from the terrace which it nestles into. A contemporary addition; sympathetic to its historic setting.

A Royal Mail building, becomes a retrofit of 43 homes. An external circulation strategy provides further accommodation with a south/southwest facing living space and balcony. An animated façade of angled balustrades provides privacy while maximizing views.

The core of a decentralized energy network, Barking's Energy Centre powers +10,000 homes saving 12,000 tonnes of Carbon. The design showcases function, exposing pipes, flues, and heat stores. The adjacent Visitor Centre echoes the architecture, offering the public a view of the underground pipes.

Tooting Works aims to support inclusive creative and tech sector growth. A shared hub for both individuals & startups provides multiple co-working, event spaces and a commercial kitchen. A tight budget meant a light touch was needed focusing on select elements. Colour is treated as a three-dimensional skin, both outside and inside, giving the individual spaces distinct identities.

Retrofit of a previous mental health clinic to be converted into schools for neurodivergent children and young adults. The landscape design provides a rich, yet simple and functional school setting that will be cherished by pupils, staff and carers.

Retrofit of a Victorian school building to be converted into schools for neurodivergent children and young adults. A biophilic design approach encourages views out and connections with nature and the muted colour palette creates a calm learning environment.

Designed for an NHS health centre, the Rainbow Bench stems from a collaborative design process with medical staff and patients during the pandemic. Created alongside Mirrl, the unique through-coloured resin seat panels form a semi-circle bench for sharing and a quarter-circle seat for retreating.

‘The Commons’ was our response to a competition to design an Imperial College site at its White City campus. The site beneath the Westway itself is a unique spectacle, featuring cathedral-like shafts of light and robust columns. Our design celebrates this ambiance by utilizing materials that sparkle and dynamic light installations. In collaboration with Erect and Jason Bruges Studio.

The transformation of an industrial warehouse into ten music studios, a ‘street’, and a green room. Inspired by Enzo Mari's 'autoprogettazione' approach, the studios feature utilitarian materials. Plywood, cut with zero waste, forms the street-facing side, with spare materials used for furniture.

Airports tend to be well connected to urban hubs with very large amounts of land. They also have significant building stock which, with a bit of imagination, can be repurposed to provide housing. We’ve selected Robin Hood Airport which closed in 2022 as our case study to show how the airport terminal can be reimagined as a co-living space and seed a larger self-build community across its grounds.

A series of characterful interventions subdivide this industrial warehouse to accommodate a creative photography studio. The resulting mix of prescribed and non-prescribed spaces encourage interpretative use, changing behaviour patterns and better resulting collaboration across the company.

Transforming two vacant commercial units into an affordable, temporary community kitchen for Bexley Council, this lively shared dining space injects life into the wider area with shopfront-visible activity and vibrant colours, underpinned with sustainable, demountable and re-usable construction.

The design development of a new residential building on a leafy infill site in London. The considered form responds to a sensitive urban and planning context, whilst providing seven high quality homes maximising the secluded setting of the existing site.

This innovative, low-cost 24hr clinical facility prioritizes stress reduction for animal patients through research-backed design strategies. The converted print works houses cutting-edge equipment, dedicated wards, and welcoming interiors that consider color, sound, and spatial arrangement.

‘The Upside-down House’ is a competition winning design for a playhouse for Berkley Homes. This simple concept gives rise to a whole new world. The floor becomes the sky, the roof becomes the floor, enter through the chimney and slide out of the front door.

Redesigning Old Street roundabout for ICON magazine, alma-nac created a destination out of a crossroads, inserting an enclave of fun into a busy roundabout. The resulting people-orientated place provides the backdrop for festivals, for picnics, for community and play (all without interrupting the buses).

This slim corner extension to a Victorian terrace in a conservation area in Hampstead accommodates an entire rebuild of the property. Retaining only the 3 storey façade, the resulting warm, open and highly efficient family home includes a bespoke alternative medicine space.

This project repurposes a 4-story Victorian house into a flexible nursery for 90 children, merging renovation and new construction. Amidst classrooms, art rooms, sleeping rooms, staff facilities, kitchen, offices, and event spaces, the old and new buildings embrace a landscape for interpretive and explorative play.

A new four bedroom house book-ending an existing Victorian terrace. The scheme elevates a lightweight cube over a recessed, robust core that extends underground to form a basement. A generous rooftop balcony is contained for privacy, with its lightweight veil dropped to allow views over the neighbouring park.

Drawing reference from Russian Dacha, the timber house sits nestled among trees. Building with SIPS ensured quick construction without compromising on quality or thermal efficiency. The building is carefully positioned to create a relationship with the trees; framing views and controlling privacy.

alma-nac instigated an alternative to the disposal of Dulwich Picture Gallery's Colour Palace Pavilion; developing the methodology and associated instruction manual for children to safely repurpose the pavilion timber. The outcome: 150 vibrant modular structures, created through a unique cross-school community project across Southwark & Lambeth.

Using an interlocking, staggered maisonette design, this tight urban garage site in Plaistow was unlocked for redevelopment, providing two three-storey houses, each with private entrances set back from the pavement. The contemporary design draws cues from the surrounding industrial architecture.

This low cost scheme is to be built around the corner from alma-nac’s studio. Constructed in SIPS, the lightweight structure will sit on existing single storey foundations. Simple extruded geometric forms along the site will house an internal street alongside a cafe and a series of flexible workspaces.

This 7 storey development of 39 homes was adopted after the Fraser Brown Mackenna designed scheme had successfully gained planning, alma-nac led a fast paced coordinated Stage 3+ package. Designed to exacting standards, the design provides a thermal envelope in line with typical Passivhaus standards.

A newbuild terrace of 8 social rent homes designed to achieve PassivHaus certification and to meet the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge targets for embodied carbon.

Deeplish Community Centre was 1 of 2 organisations that received design support as part of the 'Design for all' programme. The Community Centre in Rochdale wanted to create a garden classroom; an adaptable learning space with sustainability aspirations.

SSFSS is a design manual, developed with 8 London schools, providing design solutions for the physical and mental well-being of staff, pupils, and parents during the Covid pandemic. Published twice, it interprets government advice into affordable changes for education settings that prioritize mental health, adapting to changing guidelines.

Orientated according to the varied surrounding views afforded by its hilltop site, the differing outlooks achieved at ground and at first floor result in a naturally fragmented form. Designed as a 'through-life' home, the interior is future-proofed to accommodate a caregiver's apartment if required.

The slim house measures just 2.3m wide internally across its 16m depth. Multiple architectural techniques create the sense of space within tight confines of the plan, with a focus on ensuring natural light penetrates deep within the plan, views out of the home are maximised, while a simple roof form reduces cost.

The 300sqm home is divided into three components: a larch-clad block sandwiched between two rendered volumes. The monolithic forms are kept closed to the street and are opened up to the sculptured private garden.

A period property retrofitted into a hotel, with apartments in the style of four infamous record labels. The apartments provide accommodation for musicians visiting Basing Street Studios, whilst re-thinking the traditional architecture in the spirit of the neighbouring studio’s rich musical history.

The sensitive refurbishment of a grade II listed 1850s townhouse preserves the 5-storey building’s historic charm while modernizing it into a spacious, light-filled family home. The result balances the reinstatement of original architectural features with contemporary design approaches.

The transformation of this former office block into 25 micro-apartments employs custom joinery to blend, yet visually separate two key functions within studio apartments: the sleeping and living areas. This approach effectively doubles the perceived spaciousness of the apartments relative to their small size.

Inserted into a 3.1m wide gap in a traditional Victorian terrace in South East London, the uniquely narrow ‘Wedge House’ comprises a simple wedge-shaped plan that fully maximises the site footprint, tapering from 2.8m internally at the front of the site to 1.9m at the rear.

A community led self-build Cricket Pavilion, with shared space for local enterprise use. The scheme is derived from the movements of the cricket team; the controlled sense of arrival of each team, the separate changing cabins and the dramatic single point of entry to the pitch.

A flexible marketplace integrating lightweight temporary structures within a framework of permanent construction, the proposal allows for one-off community events, flexible interpretive use and structured weekly events.

L8 Matters Community Land Trust is seeking to develop the site of a former public swimming baths into a vibrant, sustainable community. The project aims to provide new, affordable housing, alongside a mix of community and commercial spaces, and a public garden. Targeting Passivhaus certification, the development will set a new standard for truly affordable, low-energy housing, prioritising both environmental sustainability and community well-being. L8 Matters CLT were the inaugural recipients of the Design for all programme.