<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1083252946034219&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">

Journal

Planning permission in Chelsea: how RBKC decides, and what a seven-week consent on the King's Road taught us

Rendered street view of Essoldo House, 279 King's Road, Chelsea, showing three ground floor retail units with pale brick, concrete columns and bronze-framed glazing, each with a slim dark signage panel suspended above the double doors, residential windows above. RISE Design Studio.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is one of the most closely managed planning authorities in the country, and Chelsea is the part of it where the rules bite hardest. Most of the area sits inside a conservation area, much of the housing stock is listed or sits next to somethi …

Read Story

Brick, concrete and triangles of light: the Chiesa del Gesù Redentore in Turin

Nave of the Chiesa del Gesù Redentore, Turin, looking back to the entrance: a tall red brick gable wall with a narrow lancet window of stacked triangular panes above timber doors, pews either side and a faceted concrete vault with rooflights overhead. RISE Design Studio.

Most architecture trips to Turin are built around the Lingotto, Nervi's exhibition halls and Guarini's Baroque domes. The building that stopped me in my tracks this September is on very few of those itineraries. It is a parish church in Mirafiori Nord, the district that grew up around …

Read Story

The stack effect: how warm air can ventilate your home for free

Stack effect on a rise design studio project Douglas House 3D sectional perspective

Every house already has a ventilation engine running inside it. Warm air is lighter than cool air, so it rises. In a building that means the air in your kitchen and living room, heated by cooking, people, radiators and sun through the glass, is constantly trying to climb the stairs an …

Read Story

A Gaudí house in the middle of nowhere: a summer visit to the Xalet del Catllaràs

Three-quarter view of the Xalet del Catllaràs, a tall pointed catenary-section house in pale lime render with a white river-pebble base, dormer windows stepping up the roof, small openings in the gable end and a rendered external stair, set in a pine-fringed meadow under a blue sky. RISE Design Studio

You reach the Xalet del Catllaràs on a forestry track above La Pobla de Lillet, in the Berguedà, about 130 km north of Barcelona. The road climbs through pine woods past the Santuari de Falgars, and then, at 1,371 metres, the trees open onto a meadow and there it is: a steep grey pitc …

Read Story

Sustainable Clothes Barcelona: INDOI Ghar, Poblenou | RISE

INDOI Ghar shop interior in Barcelona showing woven rattan pendant lights over a timber table of ceramics and books, clothing rail on exposed brick to the left, reclaimed timber shelves of homeware to the right and cream linen curtains at the rear. RISE Design Studio.

Most of what we write about is housing: extensions, retrofits, low-energy new builds. This one is a shop, and it is a shop we know unusually well. INDOI Ghar at Carrer de Maria Aguiló 83, Poblenou, is the Barcelona home of INDOI, the slow fashion label founded by Mallika Chaudhuri, an …

Read Story

Can Lis: What Utzon's House on Mallorca Still Teaches Us

Deep splayed openings in the thick marés stone walls of the living room at Can Lis, Mallorca, framing the sea and coastal scrub with no visible window frames, and a tiled sofa in the foreground. RISE Design Studio.

At the weekend José Dengra, Senior Architect in our London studio, spent a day at Can Lis, the house Jørn Utzon built for his family on the south coast of Mallorca. He came back with a phone full of photographs and a head full of things he'd noticed, and we've been talking about them …

Read Story

How to Find an Architect – Choosing the Right Architect

A modern garden room with clean architectural design, showcasing the importance of thoughtful architectural choices for those exploring 'How to Find the Right Architect' for personalised and functional designs.

When you decide to extend or renovate your home, you’re taking the first step on a journey. It’s exciting but also daunting. A project like this isn’t just about bricks and mortar; it’s about creating a space that works for you and your family, a space that tells your story. Choosing …

Read Story

Fourteen years in Queen's Park: how a neighbourhood shapes the way we design

Flower House, a low-energy family home in Queen's Park by RISE Design Studio, with a white arched extension at dusk.

When Domus Nova set out to capture the spirit of Queen's Park, they gathered the people who give the place its character. The volunteer-run cinema. The bakery that turns into a restaurant after dark. The taproom that began life in a garage. We were glad to be counted among them. You c …

Read Story

An evening at the Department Store in Brixton

Two men beneath the oak roof structure and glazed rooflight of the Department Store's rooftop level in Brixton, one in a white shirt, one in a navy linen blazer, with the timber frame rising behind them. RISE Design Studio.

What Squire & Partners' Brixton home says about reuse, honest materials, and handing a building back to its neighbourhood.

Read Story

Why I started RISE, and what I got wrong in the first five years

Annotated early concept perspective by RISE Design Studio, a hand-style line drawing of an open-plan interior with labels for the kitchen, kitchen island and breakfast bar, dining area, gallery, existing stair, glazed roof and patio access, showing the layout being explained to the client.

When I started RISE Design Studio in 2011, I thought architecture was the product. Like most architects, I believed the value sat in the design itself. If the drawings were thoughtful enough, the spaces beautiful enough, the craftsmanship good enough, then everything else would surely …

Read Story

Subscribe by email