Architecture
We design architecture with a critical social focus, building community wealth where we live and work, through processes that embed stories of grass-roots endeavour and local material landscapes into our architecture.
We work with private clients and community groups. All of the profit generated working for the former stays in the company to fund pro-bono work for the latter.
Low carbon materials are non-negotiable. We are more interested in a framing of local materials as a catalyst for local industry, as inspiration for current and future makers, and most importantly, to build long-term economic resilience in our County.
→ Loveland Community Building
Penryn, Cornwall
Design Team: Francesca Rausa, Stephen Davies, Nathan Stevenson, Alex Onufriev
Co-designed with the community via a long-term engagement programme, a timber barn complex specified almost entirely with reclaimed material from ReCollective.
Multi-use building featuring food processing and packing areas, a kitchen and hall to feed and shelter volunteers, cultural and educational programmes, seasonal feasts, site-based theatre and skills training for new growers.
→ North Acton Village Hut
North Acton, Ealing, London & London Design Festival 2025
Design Team: Francesca Rausa, Harry Johnson (ReCollective), Zack Barrat
Contractor: Social Constructs with ReCollective & Walthamstow Woodworks
A project with significant emphasis on design and making, which involved attendees of London Design Festival (LDF) participating in the construction programme through educational workshops. The building was delivered for a local not-for-profit to host meetings, workshops and other community uses.
Materials were sourced from the immediate locality (yes, in London!). Waste timber salvaged from a nearby film production by ReCollective, was used to clad the exterior and floor the interior, waste timber was also used in the pre-fabrication of compressed straw bale cassettes - enabling modular construction of the building. The ceramic tiles were manufactured by hand, by Rescued Clay and workshop attendees, using waste clay excavated during the construction of HS2. Waste clay was also used to produce a clay plaster to finish the interior walls, whilst the exterior is finished with a lime render.
→ Goonown Growers Community Barn
Goonown, St Agnes, Cornwall
Design Team: Francesca Rausa, Stephen Davies, Kai Chelliah, Buro Happold
Contractor: Social Constructs
A community-led, multi-use eco-barn for Goonown Growers market garden.
Design intentions were socialised at feasts and farm tours, bringing together the growers and both their volunteer and customer base, to collectively set out community ambitions for use of the space beyond food production.
The timber frame and cladding are sourced from Red’s forest at the edge of the South West, floor boards and ceiling finishes are reclaimed timber from ReCollective - windows and sky lights are also reclaimed.
An exposed hempcrete wall, funded by Newquay Orchard’s green skills programme, was built through short courses integrated with the construction work, upskilling local people who want to build with natural materials. The barn was built by Social Constructs, with an all female team, offering apprenticeships and short courses to women looking for a path into construction.
→ ColdFrame Brewery @ Innovation Nursery
Design Team: James Powell, Francesca Rausa, Stephen Davies, Luke Parmenter, Francesco Verdosa, Alex Onufriev
St Austell, Cornwall
ColdFrame’s new brewery will produce 0 kilometre beer, reflecting the founder’s ethos of producing beer that is ‘of its place’ - an ethos that is perfectly aligned with our designed philosophy.
The building is specified with a large glulam frame, manufactured with South West larch - it is clad with four different timber species to illustrate the abundance of viable construction timber in Cornwall, and ceramic tiles made with earth excavated during groundworks for the building.
The brewery is also off-grid, powered by a large solar array, and integrated with a sophisticated reed bed system which will process naturally, both human effluent and brewing waste.
→ POW Artist Studios
Ealing, London
4 new artist studios within Park Royal Open Workshops, built almost entirely with materials reclaimed by ReCollective from film industry set waste that is produced on the same estate where POW is based.
Bespoke Larsen truss components were prefabricated with reclaimed material, at ReCollective’s facility nearby, to extend the life and utility of hard to reuse timbers.
Design Team: Francesca Rausa, Luke Parmenter
After a complex planning process shifting from temporary to permeant residential, a new home for Cornwall’s much-celebrated mushroom grower, Phae Raine, and her family to live on the land at The Good Life Farm.
An oak frame home self-built by the family with low-carbon specifications throughout, and fully integrated with off-grid services and energy systems.
Design Team: Axel Uhren (Design Lead), Charlie Tucker, Francesca Rausa
Builder: Alex Smith
The volunteer hub hosts veg packing, tea drinking, cooking and eating. A crowdfunded total budget of just £5,000 was supplemented with significant effort and generosity from community networks to support a vital project.
The shelter is specified with almost no new materials. Second hand bricks have been donated by Brickfield. Hemp and lime for the infill has been donated by Social Designs. Partitions and bi-fold ‘windows’ are wrapped with leftovers from Loveland’s new polytunnels. The timber is provided by ReCollective, following a massive community effort that saw 15 tonnes of waste timber diverted from the film industry in London to Cornwall.
Design Team: Francesca Rausa, Luke Parmenter, Stephen Davies
Mechanical & Electrical: VIDA
A new laboratory and headquarters for biofuel company WASE following a successful investment round, delivering new office and manufacturing spaces in addition to centralised R&D facilities.
A highly technical design scope involving a range of WASE’ scientists in the process who provided insight on both safe and comfortable use and locations for scientific equipment - made all the more entertaining by an unusual challenge; containing odours through design.. as WASE laboratories produce biofuel from ‘humanure’.
Design Team: Francesca Rausa, Nina Jones, Nathan Stevenson, Stephen Davies
A new community hub on commercial road. Adaptive re-use of the former Retro Chic Warehouse building; offering co-working, artist studios, a cafe and deli managed by Yallah coffee, and a food and drink store operated by the proprietor; Letter Box Hamper.
→ Expressions of Resilience Pavilions
Shoreditch, London
Design Team: Francesca Rausa, Luke Parmenter, Georgemma Hunt (ReCollective)
Conceived by Beyond the Box and Build Hollywood, a programme for young creatives and designers to emerge in East London through a combination of participatory architectural design and cultural programming.
The pavilions were built almost entirely with materials reclaimed by ReCollective, then deconstructed following the cultural programme’s completion and returned to ReCollective to give the materials a third life.
