Capturing, understanding and responding to the widest possible context is the key starting point for all our projects, from masterplans to individual buildings. To maximise a site’s value for most projects this context is a city scale review of spatial, development, transit, character, cultural, climatic, socio-economic, heritage, environment factors.

Looking beyond the immediate boundaries (brief and site) allows us to understand how a project can best fit and add value to its site, surroundings, community and environment, creating a place which responds to the underlying context and is more than the sum of its parts.

Placemaking is people driven. Places should respond to human scale and behaviour and we respond to different levels of enclosure. They should use appropriate scales for different conditions and activities and have a clear hierarchy of composition, creating legible environments. This applies across typologies, from neighbourhood planning to retail environments to individual homes.

The natural environment always reveals more at closer scales therefore we expect the built environment to scale in the same way. A relationship between the built environment and the human scale is also key to creating a harmonious interaction

The initial ‘ Big Idea’ must drive a narrative thread that runs through all levels of detail development to ensure a clarity and strong sense of local identity in all our design work. This creates finished places with a visual coherence and self-referential quality, every detail reinforcing the whole and underscoring the ‘Big idea’, resulting in a strong sense of place.

Human scale is also key to creating a harmonious interaction between people, buildings and spaces.