Flat SW

Designing at a distance

Flat SW was a tired London apartment with a reasonable plan and nothing else going for it. The brief was to lift it — better finishes, better light, a layout that works — within a budget that was fixed before we started.

The complication was that we were in Lagos and the flat was in London. Every decision had to survive being described rather than pointed at: specifications written so a contractor three thousand miles away could not interpret them loosely, and a sequence tight enough that nobody waited on us for an answer.

Budget as a design tool

A fixed budget is not a constraint on quality, only on where quality goes. We spent it on the things people touch and look at every day — joinery, lighting, the bathroom and kitchen surfaces — and left alone the things a renovation often wastes money moving.

The result reads as a far more expensive flat than it was, because the money is concentrated where the eye lands rather than spread evenly across the plan.

Managed from Lagos

We ran procurement, drawings and site coordination remotely, with the client as our eyes on the ground. It is a model we have since used again, and it works when the documentation is unambiguous and the specification leaves nothing to be guessed.