Before we design anything, we read the site - its light, its edges, its history, and the way people already move through it. The best moves are usually already there, waiting to be found rather than invented.
Walk it, in every season
Drawings and surveys only go so far. We walk a site at different times of day and, where we can, across seasons - noticing where the sun lands, where the wind funnels, where the views open and where they should be closed. Much of the brief is written by the site itself.
Constraints are the brief
A tight boundary, a level change, a protected tree - the constraints that look like problems are usually the source of a building's character. We treat them as the starting point of the design rather than obstacles to be flattened.
Context without pastiche
Responding to context does not mean copying the neighbours. We take cues from scale, material, and rhythm, then answer them in a contemporary language - a building that belongs without pretending to be older than it is.
From reading to first move
Only once the site is understood do we make the first move - usually a single, clear idea that organises everything after it. A design grounded in its site needs fewer gestures to feel inevitable.