Last month, the Rodić Davidson traveled to Girona for our annual studio trip. The team spent the weekend exploring the vibrant streets and squares of the historic city.   Known as the City of the Four Rivers, Girona’s historical quarter is influenced by medieval, Roman, Arab and Hebrew influences. Above all, the brightly painted facades of the houses overlooking the river provide a symbolic image of the city. During our trip, we visited one of these houses; Casa Maso, the birthplace of 20th Century Catalan architect Rafael Maso. The RDA team were given a private tour of the house, which has been preserved with the furniture of the Noucentista period, with clear influences from the English Arts and Crafts movement reflected in the interiors of the inner staircase and bedrooms. Caso Maso is the result of the consecutive amalgamation of four houses, bought by the Maso family in the 19th…

Rodić Davidson Architects is pleased to announce that Alex has been promoted to the role of Architect, a position with protected status in the UK. This new title recognises Alex completing her seven years of architectural education, as well as sitting the qualifying examination required for registration for ARB/RIBA Chartered status. Alex started at the practice in 2021 after completing ARB/RIBA Parts I and II at the Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University. During this time, she has demonstrated considerable interest in the adaptation and reuse of existing buildings; she has built meaningful relationships with key voices in planning and project management; and she has worked across a diversity of projects, which include and apartments in Knightsbridge, Chelsea, and Belgravia and The Dilly, a five-star hotel on Piccadilly designed by Edwardian Baroque architect Richard Norman Shaw. Now a qualified architect, the team looks forward to watching Alex grow into…

During our visit to Cityscape Global 2024 in Riyadh, we visited Diriyah, northwest of the city. As of 2010, the At-Turiaf District of Diriyah gained historical and heritage status, now registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Diriyah Gate is a mixed-use heritage and tourism development project, which aims to represent the modern capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The main aims of the project are to create a district which preserves heritage whilst creating educational and cultural opportunities, towards the goal of the Kingdoms Vision 2030. The masterplan includes landscaped spaces, social, play and workspaces, forming a new picture for Riyadh living. It's refreshing to see the old city restored on a smaller scale, a distinct contrast to the large developments taking place. The approach to conservation of the site is one of minimal intervention, allowing for a considered approach for the different buildings and construction typologies. With…

The latest of Rodić Davidson’s Bury Place exhibitions comes to terms with the idea that the production process makes for a generative creative experience and should not be rushed. It understands time as value, privileging contemporary interpretations of ‘slow making’ over industrial manufacturing processes. Because for Glasgow-based artist and interior designer Brian Proudfoot, as for Ralph Waldo Emerson, the devil is in the detail, and in how that detail manifests itself within the wider whole. ‘The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and the growth of a thousand worlds is in one snail’. ‘The Snail’ is an innovative research project dedicated to exploring production and working practices. Its primary aim is to stimulate cross-disciplinary learning through the generation and exchange of knowledge. By integrating both new materialism and traditional techniques, Proudfoot provides a unique perspective on the dedication and energy required to create meaningful objects and designs.…

Rodić Davidson is pleased to announce that it will be exhibiting at this year’s Cityscape Global conference at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Centre in Saudi Arabia. As part of the RIBA’s official contingent, the practice will be demonstrating the potential for investing in London real estate, and in home-grown architectural expertise, building on the success of recent Government investment summits designed to stimulate growth in the UK economy. Riyadh is a young and dynamic city which has experienced unparalleled rates of population growth, from 150,000 people in the 1960s to more than seven million today. Some of the most interesting contributions to contemporary architecture are located within the city’s boundaries, including the Kingdom Centre, the KAFD Conference Centre, and the stations of the Riyadh Metro, as well as historic sites like Diryah. It is as much an opportunity area for RIBA-accredited British-based architects as it is a source for…

The Starmer Administration’s proposals to amend the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) promise to fundamentally change developers’ understanding of ‘green belt’ land. For the first time since the concept was passed into Law in 1947, the circuit of land surrounding Britain’s principal towns and cities will be categorised into two tiers: a ‘beautiful’ high-value greenbelt which remains protected under the strictest of planning measures; and an ‘ugly’ grey belt which can be developed for housing with little to no opposition from local authority planning officers. The announcement is a source of consternation for stakeholders in these regions, and rightly so given the inevitable threats posed to wildlife and quality of life in the midst of the Climate and the Biodiversity Emergency. And yet it is nevertheless an unsurprising and pragmatic move, given the trend of exempting developers from greenbelt policy which gradually emerged over the past two decades, as Britain…

A few weeks ago, Edmund Sumner exhibited his ‘Traces’ collection at the practice, inviting pedestrians passing along Bury Place to reflect on the role architectural photographers can play in ‘preserving’ sites of cultural, historical, and spiritual significance. The subject matter was diverse and encompassed a broad topography extending from Hacienda Holl in Mexico to Cava Arcari in Italy and the Lost Waiting Room in Peckham, but the six photographs all demonstrated the capacity of quality architectural photography to capture the resonances of built environments as they are experienced in real time. Since then, ‘Traces’ has made a number of appearances in the press. Writing from Seoul after making an appearance at Edmund’s private view at the practice, C3Globe observed that ‘the exhibition showcases photographs that transcend traditional architectural imagery‘; that ‘Sumner’s approach infuses each image with a sense of memory and emotional response to spaces, whether real or imagined’. For…

The modernist interpretation of architectural theory often conceives that architecture is more to do with making frames than painting pictures; that buildings should accommodate, rather than imitate art. The situationist stance on architectural history tends to view new and existing buildings as chronicles of memory and experience, with the potential to evoke a profound emotional or spiritual response and thereby become art. The 23rd Serpentine Pavilion synthesises these seemingly contradictory schools of thought to give rise to something altogether more powerful. Referring back to previous installations where one clearly defined architectural element was erected at the centre of the Serpentine South Lawn, ‘Archipelagic Void’ occupies the lesser used parts of the sloping landscape. In a gesture to the traditional courtyard houses of his native Korea, the architect Minsuk Cho envisions the traditional exhibition context as a communal space around which an aggregation of interrelated timber-framed forms is arranged. The void…

With ‘Minutes in Blue’ now extended into the first couple of weeks of October, architect and scenographer Raphaé Memon has released a short film exploring his window installation in greater depth. Filmed on location by Omer Ga’ash, the video picks out some of the most interesting or compelling perspectives of the six display cases, before probing deeper into the material, aesthetic, and semiotic qualities which render their latest contents so unique. Raphaé opened the conversation with a simple statement: ‘I just want to talk about blue’. In the minutes that followed, he demonstrated that this was more than an observation on his favourite colour. His commentary takes viewers on a roundabout journey along the circumference of a clockface to demonstrate the resonance of the ‘blue hour’ in popular discourse, and in the human psyche. He identifies this brief, colour-coded chapter of the everyday as a synecdoche for narratives of transformation,…

London has the highest number of Listed homes in the country. Despite being very desirable, they are often drafty and cold. Owners attempts to upgrade these desirable properties is often thwarted by regulations that seek to preserve the ‘historic character’ of the building, sometimes at all costs. Even in instances where the windows are non-original, there is often resistance to improvements. For example, installing double glazing has for many years been resisted by the Conservation Officers in Local Planning Departments. Seemingly written from a different era, Conservation Officers have often resisted upgrades by referencing guidance that falls short of accounting for the Climate Emergency. Green Conservation and the Financial Times have repeatedly stressed this point, calling for a radical rewriting of the rulebook. Now, there are signs that policy is slowly changing: Historic England’s latest advice note on ‘Adapting Historic Buildings for Energy and Carbon Efficiency’ has shifted the conversation…

Keir Starmer’s Labour administration has shifted the benchmark for UK Government housing targets, making a commitment to constructing 1.5 million homes over the next five years. The focus of press attention has been on proposals to release poor-quality greenfield sites such as car parks and scrubland for regeneration, and on the potential implications for the political standing of the party in these locations. However, the nature and quality of residential development is likely to change, as ‘building beautiful’ criteria introduced under the Tories is superseded by a new framework which emphasise traditional materials, ‘gentle density’, and respect for local heritage. Where some campaigners have seen this as a retreat from the Poundburyesque vision endorsed by Michael Gove and his supporters, others have interpreted this change as a more sustainable and creative route to the walkable urbanism popularised by the Georgians, reconceptualised by the Victorians, and eroded in the years since.…

Sustainable housing development does not necessarily need to mean an undulating sedum roof or a living wall which blends artificially into the natural landscape. It can also mean thinking critically about the materials and processes which inform the construction process, drawing inspiration from the pre-industrial past and subsequent phases of industrialisation to develop considered responses to the Climate Emergency. The focus for architects must be on sustainability at both the local and the macroscopic levels, and it should involve working with suppliers who have strategies for mitigating and ultimately reversing their carbon impacts. An alternative to the traditional fired clay brick emerged in Dorset recently, as Steve Moore and Alexandra Green built a house using natural bricks cut from Heritage Portland Stone. This unloved and unusually fossil-rich material, typically considered too irregular for building façades, has often been overlooked by the architectural profession. Sensibilities have traditionally focused on the smoother,…

From the look of it, the Pied Bull Yard Clock would appear to be a work of Victorian fancy, a whimsical piece of ‘Art for art’s sake’ concealing a complex arrangement of mechanical elements many modern clockmakers would find difficult to understand. In reality, it is no older than the mixed-use development it marks out from the street front, a curiosity of late-twentieth-century nostalgia (or anti-modernism) built in a London workshop and installed circa 1988. Raphaé Memon is one of many passers by who have stopped awhile to take a look at the clock on their way to work. At first glance, it was a rather ordinary – if ornate – timekeeping device, elevated from the street on classically influenced brackets. On closer inspection, it revealed itself as something more compelling; something to think about on an art-critical level; as a material manifestation of the passing of time, representing modern…

At the latest in a sequence of architecturally inspired lectures at the practice, photographer of architecture Edmund Sumner offered fresh insights into architectural heritage, raising important questions about the ways in which our relationships with buildings change over time. Edmund took friends and colleagues on a photographic odyssey through India and Mexico, the Middle East and Japan, sharing behind-the-scenes insights into his creative process, and recollections about his sources of inspiration. He then focused in on his ‘Traces’ collection – then free to view from the Bury Place display boxes – peeling back the layers to invite ruminations about how the same spaces have been experienced in different ways at different junctures in time. Sometimes, Edmund postulated, traces can assume a material manifestation, appearing as graffiti at public conveniences, as impressions on staircases, or as artwork adorning cave walls; more often than not, they are registered in something less tangible:…

Last night, RDA made an appearance at Clerkenwell Design Week to celebrate its fifteenth year as an international festival for applied art and design. We have been attending since its inception and were honoured to have the opportunity to connect with past, present, and future colleagues making invaluable contributions to the creative industries. This year’s event highlighted several noteworthy developments in concept design and manufacture, demonstrating the incredible pace at which our industry is evolving in response to technological innovation, consumer research, and the wider climate emergency. It also illustrated the continued relevance of nearby Clerkenwell as an artistic centre, home to more creative businesses and architects per square mile than anywhere else in Europe. Fresh back from the festival, the team are developing their plans for six upcoming window installations and another key milestone in the capital’s creative calendar: the London Design Festival. We are working closely with our…

Knightsbridge is perhaps best known for its mansion blocks, developed through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth to house London’s ‘bright young things’. Their palatial redbrick elevations rise steadily from Hyde Park, adding as much to the neighbourhood’s skyline as Harrod’s, the Royal Albert Hall, and the London Oratory.  That’s not to say, however, that the sought-after streets between Brompton Road and South Carriage Drive are lacking in architectural diversity. Beyond some of the better-known thoroughfares, there are opportunities for investing in contemporary penthouse apartments; characterful chapel conversions; reconfigured ‘modern mews’. There are rows beyond rows of desirable London stock brick terraced housing, provided you know precisely where to look. Just a short walk from the Piccadilly line stands ‘The Montpeliers’, a collection of quintessential fourth-rate Regency townhouses oriented around Montpelier Square. More so than most in Knightsbridge, this building typology lends itself to application as a traditional one-family…

Agricultural buildings are under threat in all parts of Europe; more so than any other building type. It is not only the case that changing agricultural practices have rendered our historic barns, pigsties, granaries, and cattle sheds redundant. Generally removed from population centres and development corridors, they tend to escape the attention of conservationists and property developers. As a consequence, they fall into a state of disrepair. One way to address this issue is to reconceptualise these spaces as museum pieces, inviting the public to step into life on a ‘working farm’ inspired by a specific juncture in local cultural history. Another is to adapt them to accommodate the latest agricultural technologies, safeguarding their function while making substantial compromises insofar as the form and the materiality of the building is concerned. A third is to inject new life into their storied interiors by thinking carefully about what it means to…

Earl’s Court is undergoing a remarkable transformation. What was at first a low-density residential suburb and later a centre for itinerant backpackers from Australia and New Zealand has emerged as one of London’s most desirable neighbourhoods – and for good reason. With a scarcity of developable land in prime locations, the conversion of low-occupancy hostels and boarding houses into residences has emerged as a viable and sustainable solution to meet the demand for high-quality housing stock within walking distance of both Kensington and Chelsea. Change of use (Use Class C1 to C3) is not only a sensitive redevelopment methodology, able to accommodate ambitious housing targets whilst maintaining the topography of the streetscape. A cursory survey of the recent Policy T8 Formulation Report indicates that proposals to return the neighbourhood’s tree-lined avenues and Victorian redbrick garden squares to residential use now have the full backing of the planning committee. Moving forward,…

The Rodić Davidson team recently visited one of our ongoing projects in Knightsbridge, located near Harrods. Following on from the team’s last visit in mid-2023 - we are pleased to announce that the project is progressing well on site. The building’s concrete frame is now in place up to the fourth-floor and the excavation of the basement is almost complete, with an additional 2 metres remaining to reach the lowest level required. The retaining steelwork to protect the Queen Anne Revival-style façade is gradually being removed as the new frame is being installed, with strict movement monitoring in place to ensure that the historic façade maintains its original position. The completed building will provide seven luxury, contemporary apartments of varying sizes behind the part-retained façade, arranged around a striking internal lightwell. The lightwell is a major feature of the apartments, not only providing light and views deep into the plan…

Rodić Davidson Architects have recently secured planning permission for a mixed-use residential building in Dorchester Parade, along Leigham Court Road, within the Streatham Hill Conservation Area in Lambeth. The consented scheme replaces a three-storey building, providing eighteen new apartments across seven storeys (21000sqft; an increase of 80% in area compare to the previously consented scheme). Our brief was to enhance the architectural and urban design previously approved and maximise on-site housing provision, which was achieved by a contextual design, extensive greening and increased biodiversity. As agreed with Lambeth officers during pre-application meetings, the form and height of the building have been designed to repair the currently incongruous form of the urban block, providing a more attractive corner design and a clearer demarcation between the area of the taller mixed-use buildings within the Streatham Major Centre and the lower scale residential buildings outside it. By overall form of the building, its…

Recently, Rodić Davidson Architects held a Private View for their newest exhibition ‘Let It Go’ by Nathalie Mourot. Friends and colleagues gathered for the event to celebrate and discuss Nathalie’s work over light refreshments, with a backdrop of her photography displayed as a slideshow on-screen. The ‘Let It Go’ series is a photographic journal of vacation moments produced in 2014, mainly in Tuscany, Italy. It is an invitation to an inner journey; an observation of our ability to disconnect from our everyday environment and find ourselves elsewhere. The photographs are intentionally unfixed, inviting the lens of the viewer to frame a story of their own in which everything is possible. Printed in France using natural, eco-responsible paper to achieve a delicate finish for each print. It was our pleasure to welcome such a creative and varied group to Rodić Davidson Architects. Many thanks to Nathalie Mourot for travelling from Paris…

Rodić Davidson Architects are delighted to have achieved Planning and Listed Building Consent for the comprehensive refurbishment and replacement of all windows at The Dilly, Piccadilly. The Dilly, originally called The Piccadilly Hotel, is a Grade II* Listed hotel located on Piccadilly, within Westminster’s Regent Street Conservation Area. Dating from 1908, the building was first included on the national statutory list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest in February 1958 for its role within the surrounding early 20th century Regent Street redevelopment. The building has been used continuously as a hotel since being built and had its most recent comprehensive renovation in the 1980s. The existing window design is seen as an integral part of the architectural character and appearance of the listed building. A visual inspection of the windows confirmed that remediation works could align the thermal and acoustic performance of the windows with the current performance…

Just before Christmas, the Rodić Davidson team celebrated the holidays with a memorable evening of festivities to close out a wonderful past year for the practice. Proceeding with our annual RDA Christmas quiz - alongside some cheese and wine - the whole office’s competitive spirit was on full display. A short distance away from our office, we then walked across the Thames to London Southbank for a delicious meal. Navigating our way through fourteen courses of small plates at Forza Wine, whilst overlooking a stunning view of the river.