Get everyone involved in architecture
Your community, your experiences, your stories, your project
Good buildings start with good conversations.
Engagement isn't a one-off consultation event - it's an ongoing, two-way dialogue between clients, communities, and designers, from the final screw. We help people to think differently about who shapes a building, and empower the people who will use it to take real ownership of it. Imagine engagement that feels less like a tick-box exercise and more like a chat around the kitchen table, where every voice counts and the project's values drive every decision.
We are specialists in community-led design and construction. Rather than bolting engagement onto a project, we build it into our everyday architectural services, creating moments for dialogue at every stage. Working with homeowners, co-housing groups, community organisations, and commercial clients alike, we aim for socially valuable projects, not just social value on a spreadsheet.
Our Engagement Services
AU Services by RIBA Stage
We embed engagement into our standard workflows by tailoring everyday architectural services to more community focused approaches and outcomes.
Co-Briefing
Every project starts with your stories. We run workshops with clients and communities to capture how spaces really work and what you need from them. We then consolidate it all into a communal brief everyone has had a say in.
Design in a Day
Tracing paper, pens and a table. We sketch live with you, test ideas on the spot and turn your brief into design options in a single workshop. We then take these back to the office to work into formal, scaled proposed drawings.
Collaborative Consultation
We bring our concept designs back to you and your community to ask: have we got it right? Display boards, online feedback or a frank explanation of why something can't happen, all in a two-way conversation.
Value Engineering
Budgets and planning will push back and we'll work through the compromises with you. These are your calls, not ours, so the project's values stay intact when trade-offs are made.
Co-Construction
Engagement doesn't have to end at planning. Using WikiHouse, we train and lead volunteers to build their own space, with no prior experience needed, fostering an unparalleled sense of community ownership and pride.
