SCRACE ARCHITECTS

Adding a fourth dimension to our clients dreams

PROFESSION

From Vision to Action > Scrace Architects 2025–2026

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As we step into 2026, we reflect on a busy year of progress, collaboration, and creative growth.  Whilst 2025 was a year that reaffirmed our belief in the power of design to positively shape how people experience their environments, this is the year we put our beliefs into action.

Our approach combines originality with clear, deliverable outcomes. Using drawing, painting, modelling, and creative thinking, we explore each site’s potential.  As both architects, artists and creative consultants, we develop designs that aim to tell a story, respond sensitively to their context, and offer moments of delight. Every project becomes a unique narrative shaped by place, people, and purpose.

2025 saw a range of projects reflecting this ethos. Our work in the commercial market has strengthened through partnerships with Wilton Village, Sandles Farm, the City Hall and Cherry Tree Nursery.  Each requiring both an imaginative and sensitive approach that respected character and context.

Beyond commissions, our creative workshops and public initiatives grew. The IGNITE CRAFT, COLLABORATE, CREATE series provided opportunities for knowledge sharing, and at Venturefest South 2025 we showcased our mobile prototype designed to unlock creativity, leading to the establishment of our CIC sister, See Space Differently, which we have created to empower communities to be more creative and engage with spaces through art and architecture.

The development of the practice has been supported by the growth of our team.  Mark, Joe, and Suzy have joined to support the evolving studio, Louis continues to lead on visualisation. Alongside our graduates and specialists in branding, marketing, quantity surveying and project management, the expanded team brings fresh energy and design expertise, enabling us to deliver projects of scale from concept to completion.

Looking ahead to 2026, we remain focused on challenging industry norms, sharing knowledge, and promoting sustainable, thoughtful environments. We look forward to deepening collaborations, exploring new opportunities, and creating designs and artwork that are both imaginative yet grounded in reality.

We look forward to sharing more ideas and seeing space differently with you in 2026.

For any project, large or small, a conversation is the best place to start. Contact us at info@scracearchitects.co.uk or 01722 658048 or explore our work and philosophy on instagram and on the website.

Cool (?) Beach Huts

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Over the past few years, the Solent University Beach Hut project has received praise from outside of the University for its industry awareness and practicality.  The Beach Hut project encourages students to design and build a beach hut in a team. Industry experts appreciate the lesson it offers in taking students quickly from the drawing board, to making, to realising their ideas in three dimensions.

Students have the desire and opportunity to make a real difference to our world. This year’s cohort was no different with students recognising the importance of limiting the amount of waste in construction. Student were even found one group drying the masking tape in order that they could be reused again. In a complex and often overbearing world simple lessons offer a valuable insight into how they can make a positive difference to combating climate change.

The sharing of industry knowledge is what is needed to enable the innovative changes necessary to make a tangible difference. The benefit of a Faculty of Creative Industries, Architecture and Engineering is that designers from different disciplines and art forms have the opportunity of working alongside one another. This environment enables chance encounters and cross-collaboration between subjects. This creative potential has recently been realised in the beach huts forming a set for photo shoot by the School of Fashion. Who knows they may yet feature on the front cover of Vogue(?).

Scrace Architects are keen to support this philosophy and the industry connections offered by Solent and recently provided a prize for the best design.  Tim Scrace, who lectures on the architecture and interior design courses presented the winners with their prize.  Hopefully the students will be making the most of the weather and enjoying their prize of fish and chips together in the sun.

Tim was really impressed with this years work observing;

“What a variety of different designs and inventions! I can certainly see myself comfortably “working from home” from each of these designs. From sliding doors, to rooflights, to the kitchen sink, each beach hut seems to have something to offer. The standard of design this year was so close that the winners were difficult to judge. The winners stood out because they worked so well as a team, creating something unique, a place to work as well as relax and unwind. A colourful design with a winning combination of ideas and reference.”

 

Recalibration

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As a profession, architects are obsessed with detail and engineering. More recently they have turned their attention to business, and building information modelling systems. Whilst rigorous quality-control-driven systems of manufacture are finally having a positive effect on the profitability of architectural businesses, they seem to be having a negative effect on the profundity of our buildings.  What price do you place on a building’s soul?

Gripped by templates and performance, it feels like architecture itself is on the cusp of losing its soul. Once again, and somewhat regrettably, we have realised a utopian vision where buildings, detail and finishes matter more than people. People change people’s lives, not buildings.

In an industry where sustainability remains an excuse to charge clients more for solar panels or insulation, the products of practice and industry are detached from living. Homes and extensions are ‘show homes’ and lack character; commercial buildings are functional without form.

It’s time architects and their counterparts recognise that they have got things wrong, and take time to adjust their approach. We are not alone in taking accountability of this systemic situation but will need to lead if we are to affect an industry-wide change. A recalibration of practice and delivery is in order.

The design and construction process should put greater emphasis on creative thinking. Whether this is through abstraction of the brief, choice of sustainable materials, development of concept, or procurement method, the path to good architecture should not be so narrowly defined.

A natural compulsion to get the detail right is incumbent on any architect, but the process by which this is achieved varies enormously. Those interested in making great space appear to be returning to their roots for inspiration, to Arts and Crafts, to the Bauhaus. Throughout history, architects have been recognised for lateral thinking.

The assimilation of ideas over time, without destination, may offer a more fruitful approach to design, and therefore product. Whilst working with a diverse and skilled building team to craft a solution might help caress the souls of our homes, for me, expanding the profession’s remit beyond the built form – to community engagement, art and place-making – offers the most interesting and game-changing opportunities.

With even greater global access to knowledge and materials, architects should be able to make dramatic changes. The real question is: will the profession take enough time to reflect and act upon the strategic and creative changes necessary to generate this shift?

Painting gives me time to stand back. Without restrictions, what would you do differently? 

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