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A broad base organization of like minded individuals themed around spatial investigation

20/05/2026

Look Up!

The contractor for our latest Venice CA home asked for some views of all the skylights to make sure the framing goes in right, so David and Will have been pulling some pages together; in the end we 00kind of like seeing the rooms from this perspective.

To achieve the architectural language we like, it's a really careful tailoring exercise to get all the planes and tangential curves to meet perfectly. It's not the kind of work that misalignments can get buried easily, or described as happy accidents. Always good to remember why heavy architraves, panelling and skirting boards became popular to cover up all the rough edges.

This project builds on our former Los Angeles beach schemes, but with a more intricate colour scheme and materials palette. So far, most of the first phase framing is in.

As with many of the buildings we get to work on it's a combination of new construction and historic renovation. The original house is an early 20th Century Craftsman bungalow and the design went through an extended period of review with the City of Los Angeles and the California Coastal Commission. We'll make some separate posts about each of the residential projects we currently have on site, but for the moment it's nice just to look towards the sky for a while.

There are six skylights in total (four lighting the upstairs, one downstairs, and one for both at the stair way).

Do you have a favourite?

22/07/2025

The Little Citadel has been selected one of this year's Open House Festival Preview highlights. Link in bio... bookings open in August.

workshop

19/04/2025

Starting at the end

25/05/2022

Our project for Rana Begum is currently on 's shortlist of 5 best international homes. The public vote is open until Friday (link in bio).

This view from the courtyard between the two main building blocks is of the gently canting 'little citadel' facade of the south building that floats up above the adjacent Abney Park cemetery. It contains the more private areas of the main house and a completely separate 2-bedroom guest house above. The blue spiral stair leads to one of the the three roof terraces which are each irrigated from rain water collected from all surfaces in a large cistern below the photographer's feet . The whole building is clad in Scottish Larch from sustainable sources.

Overall this is a 4800sq ft new build home and workplace retreat on a former brownfield site with 12 party wall awards and very limited opportunities for windows except on the dramatic cemetery side, all built to passive house standards of thermal insulation and air-tightness and meeting the super-stringent former Code for Sustainable Homes level 4.

Team includes:workshop

29/04/2022

In a stunning setting where Leigh Creek joins the vast scale of the Thames estuary, the last two cottages of this Victorian terrace are combined with a new addition that echoes its former coastguard look-out past.

Our first ‘crenulation’ project provides 3200 sq ft of flexible accommodation that reconciles the sloped river-edge setting to create dramatic hybridised living, working and sleeping spaces at both floors.

The original terrace was built in the late 1800’s, was entirely overtaken by the Coastguard Authority in the early 20th Century given its strategic viewpoint up the Thames, with a quirky look-out tower added at that time.

The addition is made up of 3 separate masses that sit back from the reimagined monolithic tower, each with gently facetted planes formed of through-colour lime-based render and engages the sloping site to provide entrances at both levels, with new trademark skylights and a column free kitchen and dining space tucked inconspicuously into the hillside, doubling as a retaining structure at the rear.

A strategy for maintaining the existing sycamore trees that provide privacy and also soften the impact of the scheme has been envisaged from the start as one part of a landscape strategy that envisages new hard and softscapes, including subtle terracing and new native Scots’ Pine planting. The project, which is in the Leigh Conservation area, is currently in the planning process.

28/04/2022

Can't beat a courtyard.

But you can't really, though. We call this the 'kitchen garden' because it is an extension of the indoor kitchen. This small outdoor space is essential for the experience of the indoor ones and is a nice spot to take a breath en route between home and studio.

Courtyards, even at this scale create varying microclimates between the classic 'sun trap' and more shady, slightly damp corners so the range in plant material that can be grown is quite broad. This one breaks all the estate agent rules for the northern hemisphere because it's better being to be a north-facing garden so you see towards the flowering sunny spot and have a table there.

The climbing rose, which tends to flower all year long, was transplanted vertically from its original position in the ground right below, into a new stainless steel container concealed below the counter, in 3 careful stages under the guidance of (cut right back to lowest live shoots; lifted and stored as a bare root; replanted when it's new home was ready). In the diagonally-opposite corner closer to the house hostas, ferns and camellias are in their ideal habitat.

The long counter is a pale pink cement-based terrazzo and each of the panels below hinge open for outdoor storage. It forms a nice shelf for some miniature forests in the form of bonsais. The Italian stainless steel drawers are insulated so form a useful overflow from the kitchen. The whole courtyard - including the house and studio - is clad in dark stained sustainably-harvested cedar shingles. Most of the plants are in pots or containers which requires some effort in terms of watering and feeding but allows much-needed flexibility in a small patch with competing needs, and also helps to raise the leaves further up into the light.

26/11/2021

Excited to be off to the awards where our Bouverie Mews project for is shortlisted in the London dwelling of the year category. Congratulations and thanks for everyone who has been a part of the project.

10/08/2021

Longlisted

We're super chuffed to see our home and workplace project for has made it onto the international longlist for 2021 Urban House.

Watch this spatial...

21/05/2021

Cover Thing

Thanks, for giving Bouverie Mews a whacking 17 page in-depth building study written by features editor and placing it rather beautifully on this month's cover.

Rob writes: "One gets the sense this has been a project with which Culley has enjoyed exploring his own architectural voice. This sense of the scheme’s ‘character’ is not something Culley casts only in anthropomorphic terms, describing it both as ‘animalistic’ and ‘like an animal sitting here’. The faceting of its façade does indeed seem to flex and pull the building’s form like sinews...

"It’s difficult to summarise the experience of this live-work project. It’s an architecture of narrative, movement and slippage of space but also of set-piece spatial moments and caught views out. As a project, it’s deceptive, having both a cragginess and softness to its architecture."

We couldn't have asked for a better commentary.

Team:

Spatial Affairs contributors have included these wonderful pepes:

23/04/2021

Every raw-wool-pink-tulle-pleated-sound-cloud has a marroon-embroidery-thread lining

"I've been making this sound cloud for Alison's vocal studio and it's just finished now the made to order 1N and 0.5N brass counterweights have arrived.

"It hovers above the impressive mic and sound shield set up to complete an acoustic micro-environment for a vocalist. Like most multi-process art forms - think gastronomy for example - the sound source for music is everything. Well we already know the stunning vocals are faultless and mic seems pretty impressive. Let's hope the little pink fluffy cloud helps as a secondary stage in the recording of Alison's quite extraordinary new work that I've been lucky (and quite stunned) to hear snippets of lately.

"I've always been intrigued how acoustic technologies take on quite quirky physical forms and often with architectural implications that are reminiscent of the mysterious forms of reproductive systems. A tangible track between sound technology and physical form is almost a default if you're open to it, but the sound itself, as a combination of notes, I think remains quite separate, and not so easy to derive a resonant architecture from... though many have tried."

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