MIKE TUCK STUDIO

Architects
Written By Neil Perry

What is Mike Tuck Studio?

We are an architecture studio, predominantly working on existing buildings in East London. We unpick the damage that’s been done to them over the years, incorporating thoughtful contemporary additions and making them more energy efficient and fit for family life. There are three of us here, who all live locally – myself, George Regnart and Ellen Peirson. We all work together on our projects, constantly challenging each other and sharing designs and ideas.

How hands-on do you like a client to be? Is it a collaborative process?

Totally. We need our clients there at all stages – bouncing ideas off them and really trying to understand what they’re trying to achieve. Often people come to us and say something like, ‘We need two extra bedrooms and a bigger kitchen,’ but we like to dig a bit deeper as to why. Maybe it’s because they want to spend more time together as a family, or they want to have friends over more often, or they need somewhere to relax on a Sunday afternoon. Whatever the reason, the architecture needs to support that.

So, sustainability is key?

It’s central to our practice. Back in the 1880s, this was a handsome area of London, with well-constructed buildings for the time. Over the intervening century, some have had good stewardship, but others have suffered. We enjoy working with our clients to preserve their best features. Longevity is so important – lots of these homes have been around for 140 years, and we want them to last for another 140. We’re interested in reducing embodied carbon – that is, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the construction of a building. To us, sustainable construction means reusing as much as possible and not ‘throwing your house away’, as well as building with locally-available, robust and resilient materials.

The million-dollar question - are you happy to work to a budget?

Absolutely – none of our clients have unlimited construction budgets! We tend to work on projects with a build value of £100k and up, which can be a limited budget these days. We help clients understand their priorities and what really matters. To use a food analogy, not everything has to be a flavourful curry – you can surround the curry with cheaper rice and veg. So, if you’re on a limited budget, choose one or two lovely, well-crafted things that you want to spend money on and direct your attention to; then the rest can be in the background. You can get a lot for your money with good design. Good design makes your budget go further.

How does the design process start?

We begin by going through the briefing process together, teasing out what it is that you want to get from the project. The result may even be that there isn’t a project, and it’s best for you to move house! Then there are a lot of slightly dull but necessary things such as surveys, to understand the condition of the building, before we can get to the fun part – the design.

What’s the key thing to look for when choosing an architect?

Don’t rush. It’s crucial to not only choose people whose work you like, but who you can get on with, as you might be working together for a couple of years. Talk to your potential architect, meet past clients and visit places they’ve built, to get a sense of what they’re about. It’s like dating – you need someone you can get on with in the bad times as well as the good!

What inspires you?

I study sculpture, so the idea of crafting – spending time on something until you have mastery of it – inspires me. I love the look of well-crafted objects, whether that’s pottery, sculpture or cabinetry. A lot of ideas for our projects spring from these kinds of objects.

Do you have a house style?

We don’t. Every client is different, and we put a lot of effort into finding out what is unique to a given project. Having said that, we are preoccupied with natural materials (our office is bursting with samples!); light and the quality of space it creates; the human experience of being in a building; and, crucially, the environmental impact of a project.

Are your designs practical as well as beautiful?

One of the words that keeps recurring in client feedback is that we are ‘pragmatic.’ I’ve got young children myself, and practical things matter a great deal. We like to balance the poetics of architecture with the fact that your toddler may trash your kitchen! We can put well-crafted elements in places they won’t get demolished, while also ensuring there’s a good hard-wearing floor, and windows that will still work perfectly even after they’ve been opened ten thousand times.

All photographs by Luca Piffaretti

Neil Perry
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