Feilden Fowles is developing a model for low-tech, highly sustainable and materially intelligent architecture.

Since forming in 2009, our award-winning team of architects and designers has been dedicated to a shared vision of an architecture that improves society and enhances the environment. Through our considered and contextual approach, we enable our clients to become leaders in sustainability, creating spaces that enrich lives and buildings with a sense of place.

From major museums to commercial enterprises, we take pleasure and pride in collaborating with ambitious clients in every sector. Together, we shape inspiring buildings and places that are landscape-led, culturally resonant and environmentally responsible.

We take joy in the building, finding moments of poetry in the pragmatic interplay of space, light and form. From our own self-built studio on an inner city farm in London to the UK’s leading centres of learning, we ensure every place we make is thoughtfully designed and rigorously crafted, while celebrating the inherent beauty of our materials.

We pride ourselves on clearly articulating ideas and conceptsin presentations to our clients and collaborators. Using a broad spectrum of representation mediums, we communicate the quality and subtleties of space. Representation is central to the way we share ideas and includes hand sketches and drawings, perspective images and renders, along with more tactile samples and physical models.
Our in-house workshop allows us to create a range of models and mock-ups, from large-scale strategic models, though to 1:1 details. Our passion for construction is evident throughout our physical models and we find this the best way to test material tectonics, detailing and articulation. By modelling each of our projects we capture key internal and exterior views, enabling our clients to clearly visualise their projects as they develop.

Our role is to successfully translate our clients’ ideas and aspirations into built form. We believe that the key to articulating a client’s brief and vision for a project is to ensure excellent dialogue and communication. We embrace client engagement and prioritise stakeholder and user group consultations at the earliest stage, which aids with expanding the brief whilst unlocking the valuable knowlewkeholder and user group consultations at the earliest stage, which aids with expanding the brief whilst unlocking the valuable knowledge and experience of others.
Our role is to successfully translate our clients’ ideas and aspirations into built form. We believe that the key to articulating a client’s brief and vision for a project is to ensure excellent dialogue and communication.

We embrace client engagement and prioritise stakeholder and user group consultations at the earliest stage, which aids with expanding the brief whilst unlocking the valuable knowledge and experience of others.
Our role is to successfully translate our clients’ ideas and aspirations into built form. We believe that the key to articulating a client’s brief and vision for a project is to ensure excellent dialogue and communication. We embrace client engagement and prioritise stakeholder and user group consultations at the earliest stage, which aids with expanding the brief whilst unlocking the valuable knowledge and experience of others.

Feilden Fowles designs materially rich projects, prioritising natural materials which take on a warmth, patina and weathering over time, increasing their beauty. We use traditional materials in contemporary ways, with refined detailing, particularly at interfaces and moments of expression.

We believe it is important to understand relevant vernacular precedents; why their form and materials have endured over history and how they come together. We strive to create buildings which last or are adapted, over-clad or remodelled for future needs.

Within a fast-paced and dynamic industry, we pride ourselves on our rooted approach and direct relationship to material application and construction, while capitalising on the benefits of innovation and new technologies to improve project efficiency and enhance fabric performance. We enjoy a close relationship with processes on site during construction, and believe we add most value where we undertake full project delivery to ensure quality.

Feilden Fowles is known for its low-tech approach, advocacy of passive environmental design, and affinity with local construction traditions and vernacular architecture. We integrate renewable energy strategies into our projects, and harness the natural attributes of a site to minimise carbon impact. This is embedded in our culture as a practice – our own studio operations are certified net zero, setting a benchmark for all our work.
After decades of contemporary architecture being synonymous with exuberant forms, technology-driven processes, and ‘futuristic’ materials such as concrete, glass and steel, the time has come for a necessary reset. If we are to embrace sustainability, we must embrace simplicity. At Feilden Fowles, we call this approach ‘low tech’.

Low-tech seeks to re-balance the relationship between building and technology. It is a philosophy rooted in leanness, fewer components, a preference for natural, low-embodied carbon materials, reduced reliance on technology, robustness and flexibility – in essence, simplicity.
This approach shapes our thinking, our partnerships, and our buildings. It was first embodied in Feilden Fowles’ studio, built on a meanwhile site in Waterloo in 2016, and has since informed major projects including the Weston at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Green Templeton College, Oxford, and Central Hall at the National Railway Museum in York.

We advocate for passive environmental design, often drawing from local traditions in construction and vernacular architecture. In addition to the selection of low-embodied carbon materials, and the integration of renewable energy strategies, we harness the natural attributes of a site and optimise prevailing climatic conditions to reduce the carbon impact of projects. At the Weston, for example, this took the form of 10,000 unfired clay bricks which store moisture, passively regulating the indoor climate of the exhibition spaces.

We believe good design is good for our planet. The built environment has a tremendous impact on global carbon emissions, and every development risks changing or damaging natural ecosystems. For the construction industry, meeting the needs of our society without breaching the earth’s ecological boundaries demands a paradigm shift in our behaviour. As architects, we embrace our responsibility to address the carbon crisis and mitigate biodiversity loss.

Feilden Fowles understands and acknowledges the effect that building and construction has on the environment in terms of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss, accounting for nearly 40% of energy-related CO2 emissions and significantly impacting natural habitats. As signatories of Architects Declare and RIBA Climate Challenge 2030, we take our responsibilities as environmental advocates seriously, and seek to leverage our voice and platform to call for responsible practice at every opportunity.

Our work at Feilden Fowles is unified by a deep-rooted, long-term commitment to social value. Everything we build – or plan to build – is designed to have a net positive impact on individuals, communities and the planet as a whole. We take a contextual approach to every project, ensuring that any site or structure is sensitively woven into its setting, rooted in its community, and of lasting benefit to its users and neighbours. This social focus extends beyond the work itself; it informs our company policies, team culture, client relationships, outreach activities, research and teaching, and beyond.

Our social-impact programme is concentrated in three key areas

Outreach & Partnerships
Advocacy & Participation
Case Studies & Action

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