The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
The possibilities of offsite and modern methods of construction (MMC) are at the heart of TDO’s sustainability-driven plans for the years ahead.
‘Our ambition is to be at the forefront of the next generation of architects embracing this future,’ say practice founders Doug Hodgson and Tom Lewith, both 39. ‘There is an opportunity for our generation to marry thoughtful and considered architecture with MMC.’
The pair met at the Bartlett, Lewith going onto PDP London while Hodgson worked with Christine Hawley Architects and then Levitate.
Visualisation of keyworker apartments constructed above an existing building for Skyroom
The practice has come a long way from its first building, Forest Pond House – a £7,500 self-built meditation space and children’s den cantilevering over a pond in Hampshire. In 2018 TDO collaborated with Urban Splash and George Clarke (fellow TDO co-founder Owen Jones has since joined Clarke’s company, MOBIE) on a factory-built modular housing scheme, the Fab House, which was installed at Smith’s Dock in North Shields. And earlier this year construction started on an £18.5 million office-led redevelopment and retrofit of an inner-city block at Great Suffolk Yard in Southwark, south London.
TDO has recently won approval for the first modular rooftop keyworker housing for pioneering developer Skyroom, which is attempting to tackle the shortage in this sector in central London by delivering prefabricated housing in the airspace above existing buildings.
Milestones
2012 Studio founded
2013 Forest Pond House, a plywood, glass and copper structure designed and built by the practice for £7,500, is shortlisted for the AJ Small Projects Award
2015 Work completes on new-build house on Old Church Street, a narrow, mid-terraced plot on one of Chelsea’s oldest streets
2018 Wraps taken off TDO’s modular, factory-built Fab House in North Shields for developer Urban Splash, designed in collaboration with architect and TV presenter George Clarke
2019 Submits plans for £18.5 million redevelopment and retrofit of Great Suffolk Yard in Southwark, south London
2020 Wins approval for first modular rooftop keyworker housing for developer Skyroom
TDO wins approval for Skyroom’s first ‘airspace’ homes scheme
TDO unveils plans for £18.5m revamp of historic Southwark yard
Building study: George Clarke and TDO’s modular house for Urban Splash
The Modern House moves into new home designed by TDO architecture
AJ 40 under 40 in association with
