Founded in late 2020, ARC Design Studio is an open community of passionate designers driven by a shared ambition to create a healthier, more sustainable relationship between people, place and planet.
We are a RIBA Chartered Practice and proud signatories of both the RIBA Climate Challenge 2030 and Architects Declare. Our ambition is simple: to use our practice to promote long-term thinking; ensuring that the world we leave behind is an enhancement on the one that we inherited. Recognising the enormous environmental impact of our industry, we do not want to sit back and contribute to the business-as-usual approach to architecture; we want to be on the front lines of change, which is partly why we decided to detach ourselves from our roles at larger practices.
We believe that we can make a positive contribution to our personal health and wellbeing, as well as that of our wider society, through thoughtful, intelligent design whilst safeguarding the long term health of our planet.
How do you incorporate environmental and social sustainability into your work?
Sustainability is at the very heart of what we do here at ARC Design Studio. We recognise our responsibility, as designers of built space, to ensure that the substantial investment required to realise our projects is not wasted. Our ambition is to make sure that the world we leave behind is an enhancement on the one that we inherited, employing our craft in a way that positively contributes to the long-term health of our planet.
Key to this is the lens through which we view our work. We appraise the timeline of every design problem that we are presented with, considering the social, environmental and economic sustainability of our client's brief through a series of focused appraisals to yield a design solution that finds that perfect balance between people, profit and planet. Recognising the value of social engagement, our design studio works to build consensus through a transparent, collaborative process.
What do you think is the most important issue for architects to focus on right now, and what are you doing as a practice to tackle it?
The Climate Emergency. We are at a critical juncture in our history where the business-as-usual approach to the way that we practice can no longer be sustained without causing significant damage to our planet and threatening the future survival of our species.
We are acutely aware of our contribution to this problem, working within an industry that is directly responsible for over forty percent of global carbon emissions, and recognise the urgency of the action that must be taken if we are to avoid the catastrophic consequences of a heating planet. Our design studio was formed with this motivation at its heart, to contrast the rigid structures and profit-driven motives that define much of our industry with a new template for practice that promotes a cleaner, healthier built environment.
As proud signatories of the RIBA Climate Challenge 2030 and Architects Declare we are actively exploring ways to optimise our practice.
What’s the most exciting project you’ve worked on and why?
The Sherwood Library is one of our most exciting projects to date. The scheme represents a comprehensive regeneration in the heart of Sherwood in Nottingham, which delivers a brand-new public library, supermarket, and residential dwelling houses.
Over the past year we have been able to work closely with the local authority and developers to find innovative solutions to ensure that the project is as sustainable as possible.
The development has been designed to support a rating of BREEAM ‘very good’ using, sustainable transport measures, tree planting, renewable energy, recycling, and grey water harvesting alongside the creation of community facilities to support social regeneration.
The project has given us the opportunity to support local regeneration and promote sustainability whilst upholding our client's commercial brief. In an industry that continuously faces compromise in the face of financial adversity we have thoroughly enjoyed being able to design spaces which will serve the local community for generations to come.
What is your advice for future generations of architects?
As a studio we have close links with places of education with one of the partners being an associate lecturer at the University of Lincoln’s School of Architecture.
Achieving top grades in subjects like maths and science are not essential. What you choose to study at college does not need to be overly prescribed, there are many schools of architecture each with a different focus but all with the same output. Students should focus on subjects that play to their strengths and support their creativity.
Becoming an Architect is not a one size fits all approach. The route to qualification is no longer as constrained and there are a variety of different pathways that can lead to you becoming an Architect. A good example is the recent degree apprenticeship scheme promoted by the RIBA which allows students who are more practically minded to maintain their relationship with practice whilst completing their studies.
How do you think the profession could break down barriers to entry for people of all backgrounds and abilities?
It is certainly refreshing to see an increasing number of institutions recognise the value of less traditional studies, such as psychology, media studies and computing as this yields a much more dynamic, resilient professional body. However, we believe that this is only part of the problem.
A real issue facing our profession is the narrow focus of the education process, which does not do enough to expose students of architecture to the wider mechanisms of our industry. Here at ARC Design Studio, we maintain an open desk policy where we actively encourage students to come and work with us to experience the realities of architecture in practice and, most importantly, to integrate with our professional network of designers, investors, contractors and property agents to visualise and define their own role within the industry. It is critical that we engage the next generation of designers in applying their own unique skillsets.
How can architects reconnect people with nature in urban environments through architecture?
As designers of built space we believe that we have a unique capacity to instigate a healthier relationship between our urban space and the wider planetary systems that support it. We can collectively address the climate and biodiversity crisis by working across various design scales to develop an approach that works within the parameters of the ecosphere, ensuring that our built environment is not constructed at the expense of our natural world.
We all recognise the important role of nature in promoting personal health and wellness, though sadly this is often separated from the architectural briefing process which focuses on a financial assessment of value that is simply not fit for purpose. As architects, we can (and should) do more here to promote the true value of natural connections between and within our projects; building a much richer brief with our clients that considers the broader impact of our work.
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