in'ei

Practice

The studio takes its name from the Japanese word for shade. It describes a way of working rather than a style: we begin with the light a room already has, and we design around it.

Each project starts with the existing building — its proportions, its orientation, the marks left by the people who used it before. We remove more than we add. What remains is worked on closely: the depth of a reveal, the weight of a door, the exact point where stone meets timber.

We work with a deliberately small palette of materials, chosen because they age rather than wear out. Lime plaster, solid oak, honed stone and unlacquered metal all record the passage of time, and we consider that a quality rather than a fault.

The studio takes on a small number of projects each year, and sees each through from first sketch to the last piece of furniture. Work is made with craftspeople we return to again and again.