Lumley & Koller

Lumley & Koller is an architectural partnership of practice and research, formed by Jess Lumley and Alexander Koller in 2012. We work on a range of architectural and research projects in Britain and overseas, including domestic and historic buildings, charity-based and educational projects. Our interests cover a wide area of architectural history,... which helps us find reference points and orientation and challenges current orthodoxies and fads. We aim to approach architecture both from a purely formal angle and within its wider context; the former serves to sharpen our eye constantly for the quality of forms per se, the latter to understand practical and cultural exigencies, technical complexities and materials. We try to learn from all the beauty and all the ugliness that surrounds us and to see our work as needing to fit into a narrative, sometimes a local one or a personal one, at other times historical or philosophical. The response requires sometimes sensitivity, at other times boldness, hopefully never making a statement for its own sake and, equally hopefully, not missing any opportunities for one either. We travel extensively to study different architectural strategies and vernaculars. These provide a rich visual memory & background from which we think and design. We find that previous architectural solutions can re-inform the ways in which we conceive architecture and its use.Read More