Overview: Concept design and delivery of the refurbishment of the existing lower-ground level office space at St Anne’s Court, Soho provides a new dedicated 250sqm skin and haircare product testing facilities for the iconic Good Housekeeping brand. GHK is one of the oldest continuous magazine publications in the UK, for the largest international publishing house, Hearst. Community Impact & Value: As a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to product testing, the bespoke laboratories within the Hearst Institute are based on significantly remodelled spaces within the existing retained building. Designed to provide a publicly accessible live studio, absorption within the testing process can be experienced. The working lab space, as well as flexible staff working areas support the studio provision. Here early phases of market research and product development through to quality testing and marketing is undertaken for a number of the nations most recognised brands. Technical Insights & Challenges: Full internal reconfiguration and building services where curated within this highly impactful design. The aim being to provide a functional and elegant visitor experience, drawing on a contemporary interpretation of the origins of the GHK brand within the Art Deco period and interior style. Colour use, bespoke designed furniture and equipment requirements were all seamlessly integrated. Our working wall for product trialing encapsulates both advance testing equipment with splashes of nostalgic references from the Hearst archive, individually selected and curated. The bespoke floor to ceiling metalwork is also adaptable to the changing needs of the venue and allows for future relocation if necessary. Key Achievements: The Hearst Institute will support the Good Housekeeping Cookery School also at St Anne’s Court, whilst continuing to test and review products and services for the public and wider beauty industry. HEARST INSTITUTE Client: Hearst Value: Confidential Status: Completed Overview: Concept design and delivery of the refurbishment of the existing lower-ground level office space at St Anne’s Court, Soho provides a new dedicated 250sqm skin and haircare product testing facilities for the iconic Good Housekeeping brand. GHK is one of the oldest continuous magazine publications in the UK, for the largest international publishing house, Hearst. Community Impact & Value: As a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to product testing, the bespoke laboratories within the Hearst Institute are based on significantly remodelled spaces within the existing retained building. Designed to provide a publicly accessible live studio, absorption within the testing process can be experienced. The working lab space, as well as flexible staff working areas support the studio provision. Here early phases of market research and product development through to quality testing and marketing is undertaken for a number of the nations most recognised brands. Technical Insights & Challenges: Full internal reconfiguration and building services where curated within this highly impactful design. The aim being to provide a functional and elegant visitor experience, drawing on a contemporary interpretation of the origins of the GHK brand within the Art Deco period and interior style. Colour use, bespoke designed furniture and equipment requirements were all seamlessly integrated. Our working wall for product trialing encapsulates both advance testing equipment with splashes of nostalgic references from the Hearst archive, individually selected and curated. The bespoke floor to ceiling metalwork is also adaptable to the changing needs of the venue and allows for future relocation if necessary. Key Achievements: The Hearst Institute will support the Good Housekeeping Cookery School also at St Anne’s Court, whilst continuing to test and review products and services for the public and wider beauty industry.

Selected Projects Commercial Cultural Housing EAST STREET DORA CARR CLOSE NEW ROAD TRIANGLE BARNET HOUSE BARBICAN ART GALLERY GRAYS INN ROAD THE FABRIC WORKS TOTTENHAM HALE PAVILION BRIDGE HOUSE BERESFORD STREET LION GREEN ROAD BARBICAN CINEMAS 2&3 GUILDFORD PLAZA HOUSE OF HEARST MARSTEAD LIVING

Overview: Originally constructed in 2009 and set amongst some of the only remaining ancient oaks in London’s Highgate Conservation Area, this single-storey family home was touted as a forward-thinking timber framed building. Our sensitively contemporary refurbishment and extension of the property centred around a shared ethos of low-carbon construction whilst echoing the qualities of the ecologically-innovative original. Community Impact & Value: Asymmetrically nestled into a semi-sunken back garden plot, the fragmented nature of the internal arrangement posed a number of challenges requiring a unified response. Obstacles included bedrooms opening onto main entrances, and principal rooms suffering from a lack of connection to the garden. The proposed concept methodically addressed these constraints, creating a simpler flow and separation between communal and private spaces. Technical Insights & Challenges: We repaired the disconnection between the landscape and the existing house through the provision of full height sliding doors and refurbished clerestory windows. Introducing sliding windows for all adjacent rooms also established a powerful visual and physical connection, combined with a new landscape strategy and the flourishing green roof. Both new and existing external timber are finished in black, helping the building sit effortlessly amongst the landscape. A number of sustainability strategies were implemented inside and out, including the inclusion of temperature-controlled stack and cross ventilation, permeable paving, green roofs and flood protection. Prioritising the retention and upgrading of existing fabric where possible minimised embodied carbon. The primary timber structure and cladding of the original building were extended to create an architecturally and conceptually-sensitive addition that blurred the lines between old and new. Key Achievements: The formed directional vistas from each space provide concealed yet subtly interconnected spaces that exude privacy while helping to foster togetherness for the family. CHURCH ROAD Client: Private Residential Value: Confidential Status: Completed - Awards: Dezeen Awards 2022 Urban House category - Longlist NLA Don't Move, Improve 2022 Urban Oasis category - Winner AJ Retrofit Award 2022 House £500,000 and over - Highly commended Overview: Originally constructed in 2009 and set amongst some of the only remaining ancient oaks in London’s Highgate Conservation Area, this single-storey family home was touted as a forward-thinking timber framed building. Our sensitively contemporary refurbishment and extension of the property centred around a shared ethos of low-carbon construction whilst echoing the qualities of the ecologically-innovative original. Community Impact & Value: Asymmetrically nestled into a semi-sunken back garden plot, the fragmented nature of the internal arrangement posed a number of challenges requiring a unified response. Obstacles included bedrooms opening onto main entrances, and principal rooms suffering from a lack of connection to the garden. The proposed concept methodically addressed these constraints, creating a simpler flow and separation between communal and private spaces. Technical Insights & Challenges: We repaired the disconnection between the landscape and the existing house through the provision of full height sliding doors and refurbished clerestory windows. Introducing sliding windows for all adjacent rooms also established a powerful visual and physical connection, combined with a new landscape strategy and the flourishing green roof. Both new and existing external timber are finished in black, helping the building sit effortlessly amongst the landscape. A number of sustainability strategies were implemented inside and out, including the inclusion of temperature-controlled stack and cross ventilation, permeable paving, green roofs and flood protection. Prioritising the retention and upgrading of existing fabric where possible minimised embodied carbon. The primary timber structure and cladding of the original building were extended to create an architecturally and conceptually-sensitive addition that blurred the lines between old and new. Key Achievements: The formed directional vistas from each space provide concealed yet subtly interconnected spaces that exude privacy while helping to foster togetherness for the family.

Overview: Sitting prominently within this north oxford estate, the location is perfect to contextually develop the mansion block typology created for these three interlocked development sites. 21 new 100% social rented flats sit within this three-storey chamfered block. Community Impact & Value: Being a former primary school and then home to the Charity Emmaus’ workshops, the portfolio planning approach and then phased construction, enabled this site release to provide much needed homes. Supported by the new community centre at the adjacent Dora Carr Close, Westlands Drive provides a key element of our ambitious high quality social housing scheme. Technical Insights & Challenges: The three-storey residential block is split into two distinct sections with a covered external courtyard. Secure access through the central core provides residents with an enchanting winter garden space with access bridges to their units. The then Code Level 4 and the Code for Sustainable Homes helped make this an exemplar sustainable new housing scheme and led multi-aspect design to ensure enhanced internal quality of accommodation could be provide at an entry point in the market. This 5.5m facing distance allow natural ventilation and duel/triple aspect living in otherwise an a-typical internalised corridor arrangement. Under the white brick aesthetic, thermal mass is exposed via the pre-cast plank system and pre-cast stairs, helping to moderate and retain latent heat, reducing the heating and cooling demands. Key Achievements: Undertaking the detailed design and site delivery, the wider 100 home scheme design by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) for Kevin McCloud’s development company HAB, builds on the joint venture with and housing association GreenSquare Group and Oxford City Council. Much needed accommodation for people at risk of homelessness as well as those on the housing register balances high quality design with affordability. WESTLANDS DRIVE Client: Local Authority JV Value: 2.8 million Status: Planning Overview: Sitting prominently within this north oxford estate, the location is perfect to contextually develop the mansion block typology created for these three interlocked development sites. 21 new 100% social rented flats sit within this three-storey chamfered block. Community Impact & Value: Being a former primary school and then home to the Charity Emmaus’ workshops, the portfolio planning approach and then phased construction, enabled this site release to provide much needed homes. Supported by the new community centre at the adjacent Dora Carr Close, Westlands Drive provides a key element of our ambitious high quality social housing scheme. Technical Insights & Challenges: The three-storey residential block is split into two distinct sections with a covered external courtyard. Secure access through the central core provides residents with an enchanting winter garden space with access bridges to their units. The then Code Level 4 and the Code for Sustainable Homes helped make this an exemplar sustainable new housing scheme and led multi-aspect design to ensure enhanced internal quality of accommodation could be provide at an entry point in the market. This 5.5m facing distance allow natural ventilation and duel/triple aspect living in otherwise an a-typical internalised corridor arrangement. Under the white brick aesthetic, thermal mass is exposed via the pre-cast plank system and pre-cast stairs, helping to moderate and retain latent heat, reducing the heating and cooling demands. Key Achievements: Undertaking the detailed design and site delivery, the wider 100 home scheme design by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) for Kevin McCloud’s development company HAB, builds on the joint venture with and housing association GreenSquare Group and Oxford City Council. Much needed accommodation for people at risk of homelessness as well as those on the housing register balances high quality design with affordability.

Overview: A 1,660 sqm mixed-use refurbishment and extension within a tight backland site in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Utilising Modern Methods of Construction to create much needed commercial units and thirteen new homes for the community. Community Impact & Value: The surroundings are a rich tapestry of functions, typologies and eras: from Victorian terraces, to the historical Notting Hill Methodist Church, and the disused concrete frame workshop adjacent to the M4 underpass that forms the focal point of the scheme. Collaboratively with RBKC, the retained building has a series of two storey pavilions and a six-storey ‘tail’, stitching together new and existing volumes and uses. Activated by the craft workshops on ground floor, the project links into the wider community initiatives along the Westway. Technical Insights & Challenges: Retaining the original frame structure requires lightweight technical solutions above, hybrid exposed timber flitch beam designs driving reuse and reduced carbon footprints, whilst maintaining the alure of the triangular site. The infills feature dramatic incisions and openings referencing the scale, composition and weight of the original building. The sizable cuts provide private outdoor amenity and urban greening. The opportunity for increased mini courtyard frontages and therefore glazing, flood the new homes with natural light. The profiled form of the pavilions varied roofscape maximises the sunpath for adjacent dwellings. A Cross Laminated Tiber (CLT) kit of parts forms the taller element, generating the structural form as well as the finished engineered internal aesthetic. Stabilised by a cast concrete core, these triple aspect flats are then faced in local red-brick palettes echoing the prevailing context. Key Achievements: This scheme forms a light touch series of additions and refurbishments to the existing building and a creative new craft and residential quarter for the area. BRIDGE HOUSE Client: Bryanston Developments Value: Confidential Status: Planning Overview: A 1,660 sqm mixed-use refurbishment and extension within a tight backland site in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Utilising Modern Methods of Construction to create much needed commercial units and thirteen new homes for the community. Community Impact & Value: The surroundings are a rich tapestry of functions, typologies and eras: from Victorian terraces, to the historical Notting Hill Methodist Church, and the disused concrete frame workshop adjacent to the M4 underpass that forms the focal point of the scheme. Collaboratively with RBKC, the retained building has a series of two storey pavilions and a six-storey ‘tail’, stitching together new and existing volumes and uses. Activated by the craft workshops on ground floor, the project links into the wider community initiatives along the Westway. Technical Insights & Challenges: Retaining the original frame structure requires lightweight technical solutions above, hybrid exposed timber flitch beam designs driving reuse and reduced carbon footprints, whilst maintaining the alure of the triangular site. The infills feature dramatic incisions and openings referencing the scale, composition and weight of the original building. The sizable cuts provide private outdoor amenity and urban greening. The opportunity for increased mini courtyard frontages and therefore glazing, flood the new homes with natural light. The profiled form of the pavilions varied roofscape maximises the sunpath for adjacent dwellings. A Cross Laminated Tiber (CLT) kit of parts forms the taller element, generating the structural form as well as the finished engineered internal aesthetic. Stabilised by a cast concrete core, these triple aspect flats are then faced in local red-brick palettes echoing the prevailing context. Key Achievements: This scheme forms a light touch series of additions and refurbishments to the existing building and a creative new craft and residential quarter for the area.

Overview: RUFFARCHITECTS have been commissioned to reconfigure and revitalise the Canto Court student accommodation scheme, located on Old Street in the heart of London’s Silicon Roundabout. The project involves a full internal and external refurbishment to modernise and reposition the building as a contemporary hub for student living. The works are currently progressing through the third phase of the upgrade programme, which includes enhancements to the student rooms, improvements to the ground floor retail units, and sensitive interventions to the building envelope in response to the building’s location within a conservation area. Community Impact & Value: The refurbishment aims to create a key destination within the vibrant Old Street area, enhancing the student experience while contributing to the wider identity of London’s growing technological quarter. By improving communal and social spaces, the scheme strengthens connections between students and the surrounding community. Technical Insights & Challenges: The project requires a comprehensive upgrade of 164 self-contained studios, along with the redesign of shared communal areas and restaurant facilities. Balancing high-quality design with the demands of intensive use and the urban setting presents a challenge, particularly in integrating modern student lifestyle needs into the existing building structure. Key Achievements: The scheme sets out to deliver a transformed student accommodation offer in one of London’s most dynamic districts. Through strategic refurbishment, the development will not only improve quality of life for its residents but also reinforce the area’s status as a leading destination for education, innovation, and urban living. CANTO COURT Client: Realstar / UNCLE Value: Confidential Status: Built Overview: RUFFARCHITECTS have been commissioned to reconfigure and revitalise the Canto Court student accommodation scheme, located on Old Street in the heart of London’s Silicon Roundabout. The project involves a full internal and external refurbishment to modernise and reposition the building as a contemporary hub for student living. The works are currently progressing through the third phase of the upgrade programme, which includes enhancements to the student rooms, improvements to the ground floor retail units, and sensitive interventions to the building envelope in response to the building’s location within a conservation area. Community Impact & Value: The refurbishment aims to create a key destination within the vibrant Old Street area, enhancing the student experience while contributing to the wider identity of London’s growing technological quarter. By improving communal and social spaces, the scheme strengthens connections between students and the surrounding community. Technical Insights & Challenges: The project requires a comprehensive upgrade of 164 self-contained studios, along with the redesign of shared communal areas and restaurant facilities. Balancing high-quality design with the demands of intensive use and the urban setting presents a challenge, particularly in integrating modern student lifestyle needs into the existing building structure. Key Achievements: The scheme sets out to deliver a transformed student accommodation offer in one of London’s most dynamic districts. Through strategic refurbishment, the development will not only improve quality of life for its residents but also reinforce the area’s status as a leading destination for education, innovation, and urban living.

Overview: In Kings Cross Camden, our 945 sqm mixed-used proposal seeks to establish strong connections between the street and existing architecture adjacent to the prominent corner site, re-establishing its relationship to the main street. An extended basement and ground floor accommodate new commercial units and ancillary functions, with five residential units provided in the floors above. Provision is made for the potential addition of a further six storeys, futureproofing the function and viability of the project. Community Impact & Value: The building’s form , material and composition has emerged following in-depth studies of both the site and the conservation area’s architecture and noteworthy adjacent Listed buildings. The result is a textured facade composed of black brick arches set over two storeys, rising in a softer buff brick of the retrofitted volume above. The arches continue a language established by local light-industrial railway buildings and more recent commercial developments, with the retained taller block maintaining its relationship with the setting. Technical Insights & Challenges: The extended ground and first floor re-establish the original building line. A strong new urban corner is aligned along Britannia Street and steps back gently along Gray’s Inn Road, reuniting pedestrian routes and framing a mature London Plane Tree. Refined metal detailing of the ground-floor spaces reinforce a warehouse language that continues to the balustrades of the residential loggia above and provides solar shading for the southern elevation. Key Achievements: New entrances for both new and existing homes replace an isolated fenced-off forecourt, establishing a stronger, more welcoming sense of arrival. At its tallest, the proposed extension extends to nine storeys, a scale similar to surrounding developments further strengthening the site's seamless integration into this preexisting central urban environment. GRAYS INN ROAD Client: CMT Construction Value: Confidential Status: Detailed Design Overview: In Kings Cross Camden, our 945 sqm mixed-used proposal seeks to establish strong connections between the street and existing architecture adjacent to the prominent corner site, re-establishing its relationship to the main street. An extended basement and ground floor accommodate new commercial units and ancillary functions, with five residential units provided in the floors above. Provision is made for the potential addition of a further six storeys, futureproofing the function and viability of the project. Community Impact & Value: The building’s form , material and composition has emerged following in-depth studies of both the site and the conservation area’s architecture and noteworthy adjacent Listed buildings. The result is a textured facade composed of black brick arches set over two storeys, rising in a softer buff brick of the retrofitted volume above. The arches continue a language established by local light-industrial railway buildings and more recent commercial developments, with the retained taller block maintaining its relationship with the setting. Technical Insights & Challenges: The extended ground and first floor re-establish the original building line. A strong new urban corner is aligned along Britannia Street and steps back gently along Gray’s Inn Road, reuniting pedestrian routes and framing a mature London Plane Tree. Refined metal detailing of the ground-floor spaces reinforce a warehouse language that continues to the balustrades of the residential loggia above and provides solar shading for the southern elevation. Key Achievements: New entrances for both new and existing homes replace an isolated fenced-off forecourt, establishing a stronger, more welcoming sense of arrival. At its tallest, the proposed extension extends to nine storeys, a scale similar to surrounding developments further strengthening the site's seamless integration into this preexisting central urban environment.

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About RUFF Services The Team Awards Clients Vacancies About Us Founded in 2014 by Paul Ruff, the collaborative studio is engaged in ongoing partnerships with private clients, councils, cultural institutions, developers, and designers. For us, through architecture, we can contribute to a brighter and more sustainable future. With any given context, typology, budget, or complexity, our considered and analytical process aims to arrive at beauty, supported by sound technical solutions and efficient means. From concept to completion, we create carefully crafted architecture that seeks to inspire people and place; whether prestigious mixed-use masterplans or intimate projects capturing the intricacies of everyday domestic life. We believe that meaningful design is the result of open conversation. Our studio is home to a tight-knit group of accomplished, agile designers. Our collective track record of experience enables us to confidently lead with creativity, candour and care - both newer and established clients towards realising their vision. We have fostered an appreciation for the uniqueness of every context; helping shape enduring places wherever we work. With offices in London and Exeter, we are skilled in handling the complexity of the city, as well as regional nuances beyond the capital. Our teams boast a unique blend of specialisms that are design focused and technically adept. This diversity of thought and talent is our foundation and catalyst in creating projects where every detail is designed to last and adapt over generations. At RUFFARCHITECTS we believe that our strength lies in the dedication and talent of our team. We understand that our success is a direct reflection of their hard work and commitment. That's why we are proud to support the Living Wage Employer scheme, ensuring that every member of our team is fairly compensated for their invaluable contributions. By promoting a workplace where everyone is respected and rewarded, we continue to build a stronger, more united company—one that thrives on the well-being of its people. Our team also take pride in supporting various charities close to our hearts. These include Cancer Research, Article 25, and the Architect's Benevolent Society.