Piercy & Company
Get to know Piercy&Company, a multi-award-winning architecture studio, with a reputation for bold ideas, strong forms, and carefully crafted buildings.
Piercy&Company was founded in 2001 and now has become one of the British leading architectural practices. Their studio in London is filled with all-scale projects from furniture commissions and private homes to collaborations with international businesses and fashion brands. The practice balances modernist ideals of pure space and light and a more sensible architectural approach to texture, historic fabric, and place. We interviewed Stuart Piercy, founder, and director of the practice, to share his thoughts and ethos of the company.
Stuart Piercy - founder and director of the company
Get to know Piercy&Company, a multi-award-winning architecture studio, with a reputation for bold ideas, strong forms, and carefully crafted buildings.
Piercy&Company was founded in 2001 and now has become one of the British leading architectural practices. Their studio in London is filled with all-scale projects from furniture commissions and private homes to collaborations with international businesses and fashion brands. The practice balances modernist ideals of pure space and light and a more sensible architectural approach to texture, historic fabric, and place. We interviewed Stuart Piercy, founder, and director of the practice, to share his thoughts and ethos of the company.
What made you want to become an architect? Was architecture a relevant topic in your childhood home? Did your upbringing influence your creative approach?
I am from a family of makers, so growing up, I remember my father and grandfather always tinkering and fixing things in their workshops. This was during the 1970s, an era of make-do and mend, so making was very much the zeitgeist. My interest in building stemmed from my uncle's role as a builder in renovating many of Yorkshire's industrial buildings like Salts Mill, an old textile mill originally built in the 1850s, now home to a fantastic David Hockney collection. I'd often spend my weekends on-site, a kind of informal apprenticeship.
Stuart Piercy - founder and director of the company
How do you describe Piercy&Company's work and the philosophy behind it?
What's studio's drive in architecture?
I think there's an interesting duality in architecture in the sense that it can be both pragmatic and poetic. As architects, we ensure that a building achieves what the client wants, thinking and working around many variables like timelines, budgets, planning regulations, site specificities, sustainability, and construction methods. Yet, at the same time, we're also interested in ensuring our buildings feel good for the people who experience them and, at a city scale, contribute to their local contexts in a more poetic way. Our approach reflects this duality by combining digital and physical design processes to explore new possibilities in tackling both aspects and making places that improve the human experience.
Can you provide some examples of how you apply your approach in your projects?
Code-Bothy constructed by Piercy&Company, Material Architecture Lab (MAL), The Bartlett and UCL (photo by Naaro)
How does your creative approach vary for different customers, project types and locations?
Our approach is consistent across all projects, sectors, typologies and scales, from working with a recognised global brand like Chanel to the Presbyterian church and designing everything from masterplans to a door handle. The approach we use - the convergence of digital/manual processes and the level of detail invested is consistent. However, the outcomes vary because we design to the specificity of our sites and ranging client needs.
Your practice is widely recognised for office projects with many already complete, like 25 Savile Row, and some currently under construction. What are the design principles that make a good office?
The International Presbyterian Church designed by Piercy&Company (photo by Simone Bossi)
How does materiality and craft come to play in your design?
Making, materiality and craft are all central to the studio, lending themselves to the poetic part of what we do. Our space in Camden has been designed to accommodate the process of creating through making with an extensive materials library and model-making workshop with materials, models and maquettes on display throughout.
Piercy&Company architecture studio (photo by Jack Hobhouse)
What is the material you use the most in your project and why?
We like to use natural materials such as wood and stone that have a natural character and depth, materials that you can cut into to reveal an inner grain. There’s an honesty to these materials which mean they lend themselves well to creating places that speak to people. But materials don't have to be costly; I remember vividly reading about Kengo Kuma’s snakeskin imprinted paper towels. It illustrated that you could take a simple innate quotidian material and revitalise it with a mark or imprint.
The television centre penthouse designed by Piercy&Company (photo by Simone Bossi)