20 Years of Living Space Architects

In 2004 Stuart and I left our jobs in London and decided to go travelling – at the time we were both 29 and had a dream of eventually leaving London and moving back down to be closer to my family in Devon.  As we travelled round Australia and Asia we realised we wanted to start our own architect’s practice and begain hatching a plan to set up our business –  In September 04 we arrived back at my parents home on the edge of Dartmoor ready to start from their kitchen table.  As we were effectively jobless and had little to no savings we were extremely lucky to get suport from the Prince’s Trust and our bank manager in Tavistock who gave us a small loan.  Our marketing strategy was to set up a small stand at the Ideal Home Show in Plymouth, where we displayed photos of our previous work and talked to a lot of people – that gave us our first 2 small projects.   I recently found this excert from our business plan which still feels relevant to what we do today:

We want to establish a young and contemporary architectural design practice that is forward thinking and innovative with space. To create architectural designs that draw inspiration from their surroundings and work in harmony with the environment. To offer a service that exercises our technical abilities and our imaginations. To meet new people and make new friends. To take a different approach.

After 20 years of running Living Space we feel very lucky to have worked with many talented and supportive people – we are proud that we still call so many of them friends.  This is a reflection of the way we aim to do business – to collaborate and do the best job we can for our clients as a team.

Thank you to all of our clients, freinds and family and staff that have been there for us over the last 20 years – we are enormously grateful.

Kirsty & Stuart