Home - Studio MCW

Low-tech High Craft

We design buildings that are straightforward in principle and rigorous in execution. Our work is shaped by passive environmental thinking, material honesty and an understanding of how things are made.

Low-tech High Craft

Unexpected Delights

Our projects contain moments that unfold over time, a shift in light, a framed view, a compression before release.

Unexpected Delights

Built Together

For us, collaboration is not optional, it is essential. Our studio has cultivated an open, supportive environment where every voice is valued.

Built Together

Selected Projects

All

Earthrise Studio

Warehouse conversion into a flexible live-work space.

Pared-back interiors and a light-touch approach define this retrofit of a converted warehouse apartment for climate activists and filmmakers Jack Harries and Alice Aedy. The live-work space balances relaxation with the busy operations of their media company, Earthrise.

Follyfield

Restoration of an 18th-century stone house for modern living.

A refined interpretation of an 18th-century stone property, Follyfield is the first phase of a multi-stage renovation by Studio McW in the Cambridgeshire countryside. Three gabled extensions, scaled to respond to the proportions of the original house, blend contemporary architecture with the hamlet’s rural vernacular, setting a sensitive foundation for the wider project.

Sobremesa

Renovation with side and rear extension, creating a light-filled sociable home.

A playful, curved brick form responds to the constraints of a tight urban site, prioritising neighbouring light, outlook, and amenity. The wider renovation preserves the proportions and detailing of the existing house while introducing a light-filled, sociable interior. The new spaces feel contemporary yet sensitive to their context, with geometry that carefully manages views, controls light, and provides passive solar shading.

Aperture House

Phased renovation highlighting bold apertures and spatial connections.

Bold architectural apertures shape the spatial experience of this context-driven home. Aperture House is guided by a nuanced spatial strategy that allows the clients to be together yet apart, to work, reflect, and retreat, maintaining connection without compromising privacy.

In Progress

Fenland House

Studio McW has won planning approval for a series of high-quality alterations and extensions to Fenland House in Cambridgeshire – the scheme creates a low-impact home that enhances the property’s suitability for modern family life while preserving the architectural integrity of the original 1937 Art Deco dwelling and its rural setting.

The works replace poor-quality ad-hoc additions with new ground and first floor extensions and a sympathetic internal reconfiguration, and a collaborative landscaping strategy. In addition a 2,500-square-foot timber-clad guest annexe will provide accommodation for the client’s family members, making the property suitable for multi-generational living.

The design strengthens the home’s relationship with its gardens and surrounding landscape. A double-height atrium, created by borrowing floor area from the upper levels, maximises views of the rear garden while supporting passive heating and cooling. The new extensions respond to and celebrate the inherent symmetry of the rear façade and the asymmetry of the front.

In Progress

Office Pavilion

Studio McW have been instructed to work on initial designs for a pavilion in the rear courtyard of an office space on a market street by Waterloo station of which both influenced the design. The structure was commissioned to accommodate extra break out spaces for the office workers and allow for a space that could host events.

In Progress

Hampstead

Studio McW have been working on concept diagrams and sketch renders for the reworking of a unique multi-level coach house in Hampstead. The proposal introduces a large side extension to draw circulation and services out of the original footprint – freeing-up the main house (and the new basement) to become a sequence of interconnected split-level spaces for living, cooking and gathering as a family.

Hampstead is an area rooted in artists. Figures such as Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, informed the facade studies including the latter’s relief studies, exploring composition, materiality, apertures, and the subtle interplay of light and shadow on planar surfaces.

		
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