I am launching the practice following the completion of my self-build house in Lewisham<\/a>, for which I was the developer and architect, as well as the main contractor, site manager, carpenter and cabinet-maker.<\/p>\n
Taking on the self-build as a four-day-a-week project with my partner, while I was still working part-time for dRMM, showed me what it really means to be accountable for every choice: creative, technical and financial, and this experience of independent problem-solving naturally evolved into the decision to start my own practice.<\/p>\n
The goal is to work with likeminded clients who agree that building with integrity is both essential and rewarding. I would love to explore more community-driven retrofit projects.<\/p>\n
Self-build is not for the faint-hearted<\/p>\n
While self-build is not for the faint-hearted, I\u2019m confident that if deployed at scale, it could be a meaningful way to deliver homes. It offers genuine viability advantages: removing developer profit, reducing overheads and allowing direct control over cost and value.<\/p>\n
By managing or delivering parts of the work yourself, you capture savings through sweat equity, tax exemptions (such as CIL and VAT) and leaner procurement. It also unlocks tiny overlooked sites that would be unviable under conventional development models. With central government looking to relax rules for larger projects, community and citizen-led projects deserve similar encouragement.<\/p>\n
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Castlands Road \u2013 a 120m2 self-build house project in Catford by Bricolage \u2013 model by Ellie Sampson<\/p>\n
What are your ambitions?
The name, ambition and purpose of Bricolage emerged from both personal experience and wider shifts within the industry. The word itself holds several meanings, from \u2018do-it-yourself\u2019 projects to the creative reuse of materials and ideas, reflecting an approach that values improvisation, resourcefulness and repair over excess.<\/p>\n
Popularised by anthropologist Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss in the 1960s, bricolage also echoes the spirit of Dadaism: a response to the absurdity of a world fractured by its own faith in progress and technology. The instinct to scavenge, reassemble and find meaning in the discarded feels deeply relevant today.<\/p>\n
Similar global contradictions persist: the pursuit of endless growth has driven ecological and climatic breakdown, while technology (and now AI) is again offered as the cure to the problems it helped create.<\/p>\n
In this context, Bricolage becomes a call to build differently, through reuse, circular design and a renewed culture of making and doing things yourself.<\/p>\n
What are the biggest challenges facing yourself as a start-up and the profession generally?
Starting a practice is financially demanding, especially for architects who come from a modest background, and with a young family to support. I owe a great deal to my wife, her support and hard work makes these early stages possible.<\/p>\n
The barriers to entry are very real without a financial safety net, and I\u2019m acutely aware of how difficult this moment is for architectural practices of all sizes.<\/p>\n
Barriers to entry are very real without a financial safety net<\/p>\n
The current slowdown in architecture and construction more widely is a symptom of deep-rooted issues that go beyond the economic cycle. Addressing them will take reform across politics, procurement and practice. My aim is to play a small part in that shift: helping the industry move towards more sustainable and equitable ways of building.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s very early days as a practice, but I\u2019m keen to diversify income streams while project work is still uncertain. Right now, that means a mixture of smaller domestic projects, consultancy work \u2013 helping councils on policy, Design Review Panels \u2013 teaching one day a week at the University of Reading, and some freelance work.<\/p>\n
Which scheme, completed in the past five years, has inspired you most?
The RUSS project at Church Grove in Lewisham really stands out for me. It\u2019s a community-led self-build by Architype and Shepheard Epstein Hunter, and it carries forward a radical local legacy. Lewisham has long been at the heart of self-build in the UK, from Walter Segal\u2019s pioneering schemes in the 1980s to this new generation of community housing. There\u2019s something poetic about it happening here again, decades later, on the same ground.<\/p>\n
What I find most inspiring is how the project reimagines what those earlier experiments set in motion: people taking control of how they live, shaping both the process and the outcome. It\u2019s not about perfection, rather participation, care and shared ownership. It shows that good architecture can emerge from collaboration, using what\u2019s at hand and building trust as much as homes.<\/p>\n
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12 Church Grove, SE13<\/p>\n
Are you using any new design techniques, such as AI?
I\u2019m keen to explore new tools, but mindful of AI\u2019s environmental and cultural impacts. In the same way the internet, and later social media, transformed how we connect and do business, AI is now reshaping creative practice. It\u2019s hard to ignore that, and I feel it\u2019s now a case of adapting or being left behind.<\/p>\n
So, I use AI cautiously, but remain curious about its potential. I\u2019ve found it can be helpful in accelerating parts of the drawing process, particularly now when working on visualisations, but I\u2019m deeply uncomfortable with architects using it for idea generation. Right now, AI can\u2019t enact the spirit of doing it yourself that\u2019s so fundamental to how I work.<\/p>\n
How are you marketing yourselves? Looking ahead, I\u2019m focusing on entering more design competitions and building collaborations with like-minded practices to form strong teams for the right opportunities.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been lucky so far that the work has grown through word-of-mouth and the professional network I\u2019ve built over my career. Earlier this month, I was proud to receive third place in the Portobello Promenade Civic Hub<\/a> competition \u2013 a project that embodies the kind of meaningful, low-impact architecture I aim to pursue.<\/p>\n
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