BWP Architects

BWP Architects Ltd was first established in October 2003 and has undergone a number of changes through the years.

The practice is run by husband and wife team Leigh and Jane Brooks from their studio in Farnham, Surrey.

After meeting at university in Leicester studying Architecture together, they now enjoy working together helping private clients build their own homes and developers building schemes for up to a dozen properties throughout Surrey, Hampshire and West Sussex.

Approach

Rather than dogmatically sticking with or adopting a ‘house style’ we let the project, the site and the client inform the design process. We understand the importance of marrying traditional architectural language and construction techniques with contemporary design principles to ensure that our projects enhance and are sympathetic to the setting and appearance of the site, as well as its surroundings and any existing buildings.

Each client is dealt with personally by one of the partners and each scheme is tailored to suit the client’s current and future needs while paying close attention to budget constraints, planning issues and the impact on the wider environment.

Environment and sustainability

Understanding the importance of environmental issues in today’s world helps to guide and influence our design ethos. This can range from specifying the use of locally sourced or recycled materials to minimise embodied CO2 emissions and the inclusion of passive solar control systems through to the incorporation of more technologically based solutions such as ground source heat pumps or rainwater harvesting systems.

There are many ways in which new buildings can be designed to be “sustainable” from not just immediate energy saving measures such as improved insulation and air-tightness but also by looking at embodied energy (for example, manufacturing and transportation costs, life-time energy costs, the ability to recycle items at the end of their life etc). There are different standards and ways of measuring energy efficiency from simple SAP Calculations to Passivehaus standards which deals primarily with insulation and air-tightness through to more general approaches that the planners may insist upon such as a general reduction in CO2 emissions above and beyond that required by Building Control. BWP Architects are able to guide you through this potential maze of legislation and principals to ensure that you satisfy your own agenda and desires.