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

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 can read the full feature here.

It got us thinking about something we do not say out loud often enough. RISE Design Studio did not just grow up in Queen's Park. The neighbourhood is woven into how we design.

Imran Jahn and Sean Ronnie Hill, Directors at RISE Design Studio

A practice that grew where it stood

We started fourteen years ago in a small studio on Lonsdale Road. It was a place to put a drawing board (a few iMacs and a printer!) and answer the phone. It became something more. This is where our daughters learned to walk, and where the studio found its stride. You cannot work somewhere that long, on those streets, among those people, without it shaping your eye.

Queen's Park is full of creativity, character and contradictions. One minute you are talking to an artist about their latest exhibition, the next you are holding the ladder while a neighbour fixes a wonky gutter. That mix is the point. It keeps the place honest, and it keeps us honest too.

Designing for a place, not a style

There is a particular discipline in designing for a neighbourhood you know by heart. You understand the rhythm of the Victorian terraces, the way light moves across these gardens, the conservation context that asks you to be respectful without being timid. You learn that the best work here is rarely the loudest.

For us, good design is not about grand gestures. It is about creating spaces that are quietly bold, deeply personal, and leave the lightest footprint possible. That belief sits behind every project we take on. It is easiest to explain by walking through one.

Flower House: a Queen's Park home, close to completion

Flower House, Queen's Park. A sculptural garden extension frames arched glazing and a planted courtyard, glowing at dusk. 

Flower House is a private family home a short walk from the studio, now approaching completion. It is everything we believe a Queen's Park project should be. Low in energy demand. Generous with daylight. Built to sit comfortably within its street rather than shout over it.

What matters most is how the house will be lived in. A home that costs little to run, holds its warmth through a London winter, and feels as though it has always belonged here. That is the lightest footprint we keep talking about, made real.

Roots that travel with us

The practice has grown since those Lonsdale Road days. Today we work between three studios: our original home in Queen's Park, The Society Building in Fitzrovia, and our studio in Barcelona. The work now reaches well beyond NW6. Queen's Park is where it all started, and the way of working it taught us travels with us wherever the work takes us.

What we learned here is simple. Proximity is part of the work. The best buildings come from knowing a place, its light, its streets, the lives lived inside it. We carry that habit of close attention into every project, whether it sits around the corner or across the city.

Queen's Park feels like a proper village, the kind of place where everyone is quietly doing something brilliant. You do not need to shout about it. The charm is in the understatement. We are proud to have grown up here, and prouder still to be counted among the neighbours who make this corner of Northwest London what it is.

If you are planning a project in Queen's Park or the surrounding area and you would like to talk it through, we're happy to help. Please do get in touch.

→ Email us at architects@risedesignstudio.co.uk
→ Or call the studio on 020 3947 5886

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