Context Office is a design and research practice specialising in public space. We provide cultural and spatial strategies and design solutions.
We work with both public and private sector clients to help them make thoughtful and nuanced improvements to the built environment. We interpret the forces that shape complex places in order to make proposals. Our approach involves the detailed observation of people’s use of space, the study of site-specific environmental, historical and future conditions, alongside consideration of stakeholder needs, policy and development demands.
Our services include:
We are interested in urban, rural and marginal conditions, from celebrated spaces to overlooked places. We work with clients and partners to integrate new development and infrastructure, enable cultural activity, design characterful streets and build public spaces that contribute to sustainability and improve the quality of everyday life.
Alex has over fifteen years of professional experience designing and directing public realm projects, award-winning streetscape renewal, architectural and masterplan integration schemes.
He works collaboratively with cross-disciplinary teams, city governments, developers, curators, community groups and other designers. Alex devises methodologies for analysing and representing the many layers that make up a site, synthesising these findings into design decisions. He develops proposals for the public realm of new developments and historic buildings as well as their surroundings. During his career he has led designs for streets and parks, improving pedestrian and cycling experience, upgrading material quality, connectivity, public art and greenery. Alex has particular experience in the West End of London.
Alex studied architecture at the University of Cambridge, The Royal College of Art and London Metropolitan University. He has taught at the University of Brighton over many years, leading studios investigating how to design imagined futures and new buildings within distinctive contexts.
Read MoreVictoria is an urban designer with fifteen years’ experience directing cultural projects, large-scale strategies and policy documents shaping areas of the city.
Victoria’s expertise lies in the development of sensitive, context-led urban strategies and in the documentation and analysis of urban environments. She translates spatial analysis into tangible design recommendations, and brings insight and evidence to accelerate clients’ and design teams’ understanding of a place and of its key issues and assets. Victoria is particularly experienced in leading projects that bring together culture and the public realm in locations with competing pressures and multifaceted user groups, often building consensus on projects through bespoke stakeholder engagement methodologies. She has an in-depth understanding of the historic character, unique patterns of use, stakeholder networks and policy context of central London and the River Thames.
Victoria studied civil engineering with architecture at the University of Southampton and gained her diploma in architecture at London Metropolitan University.
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