Building Lean

Image - modular partition system, in Scottish Douglas fir.
Words, Colin Baillie.

Building Lean

Speaking to Architecture Today recently about our approach as a studio, I touched on our interest in making buildings that are lean and economic in their construction. We often talk about simplicity, and this overlaps with lean-ness. We have an instinct that a simpler solution to a problem is usually a more elegant one, and by virtue of simplicity is often more economical. This is not the same as making things cheaper per se, but rather a conscious prioritising of where value lies, using an ‘economy of means as an aesthetic tool’, to quote Peter Salter’s 2005 essay on the work of Sergison Bates.

We also talk regularly about resources, and the imperative to reduce carbon in everything that we produce. In the times in which we are working, where construction is increasingly complex and costly, lean and economic responses to brief, context, and construction hold significant value. A measure of success in our projects, is in finding an elegant and well-resolved solution, in a way that’s lean and resource efficient. In practice, this is often tied directly to the viability of building at all, particularly when using responsibly sourced materials is a prerequisite.

This is a tension which we not only work with, but enjoy.