When you go into a room you utter to yourself the unspoken words 'I am outside it, I am entering it, I am in the middle of it.'

The human urge to tell stories seems as basic as the need for shelter or food, to make sense of our relationship to our surroundings. In the 21st century these stories may be highly complex, fragmentary or concealed, but however tenuous, there is still a moment of illumination or a pause for reflection.

Architecture is far more than sculpture writ large; it changes over time, with daylight, as it is occupied and as it weathers and ages. Architecture is an essentially collaborative art where the architects vision is simply a starting point that develops through other peoples' involvement and the owner or clients use. Recognising this is a key to understanding how Architecture influences our other work, and how it can be enriched by them. The design process starts with an exchange of stories; our client s tell us stories about their life, work and aspirations, we tell stories of our buildings and visions.

Monologue

And Finally, our buildings say things about us. We may not always be aware of it, but the buildings we choose to occupy, and how we occupy them, say much about us. Architecture does not just reflect who we are; it shows how we would like to be and to live, projecting values that others may recognise and respect.

Duologue

Architecture,
unlike the room makeover, new car or watch, is not simply a personal choice. Buildings last and have a public presence; they relate to history, the neighbourhood and the landscape. This is not fixed; it is an open-ended dialogue that we can write and define only so far, leaving pointers and ground rules as to how this might develop in the future. In all these stages, there is something inherently theatrical.

It is not suprising that we have a great interest in theatre, nor that the theatre we have worked on has had an architectonic dimension.