Architecture · Interiors · A+D practice
Kerning Architecture & DesignArchitecture
Architecture, shaped by craft.
DRG · 001 / SECTION A–A
SCALE 1 : 50 · ALL DIMS IN MM
ISSUE · 001
KERNING · Architecture
The drawing above is not a project — it is the studio's shorthand for how we think. A room with a kitchen at one end, a table at the other, daylight from above, and the section cut that proves all three are in tension with each other.
STUDIO · IN
Architecture and interiors built around the rooms a guest actually walks through — drawn in-house, detailed in person, and stayed through to handover.
01 · Brief
Walked, not received.
Every project begins on site, in conversation. The brief we write back is shorter than the one we received, and harder to disagree with.
02 · Material
Held before it's drawn.
Stone from the quarry, lime from the pit, wood with a grain we can read. Materials are signed off in person, on a sample table — not in a swatch book.
03 · Build
Stayed through to handover.
We are on site through construction, alongside Hemco and Kerning Hospitality. The drawing set is not abandoned at tender — it is the room.
Positioning
Flagship architecture and interior design practice.
The group's architecture practice — shaping commercial, hospitality, and institutional spaces with a deep material sensibility.
Approach
Kerning Architecture & Design is the group's architecture and interior practice — small, partner-led, and set up so the building, the kitchen, and the room a guest actually sits in arrive as one coordinated work, instead of three contractors meeting on site for the first time. We work in soft pencil before we work in software: the briefs are interrogated, the rooms are walked, the materials are sourced and held in the hand before they make it onto a sample board.
Most of our work is in hospitality, cultural and adaptive-reuse projects, where there is a kitchen or a programme at the centre and an experience around it. We design the building, draw the millwork, specify the materials, and stay through the build alongside Hemco and Kerning Hospitality. The practice deliberately takes fewer projects than it is offered — architecture, like the kitchen it shelters, reads cleanly only when it has been thought about for long enough.
“Architecture, drawn in soft pencil.”
Capabilities
What Kerning A+D does.
- 01
Architecture
Hospitality, cultural and institutional buildings — from feasibility and brief through to occupation. New-build and adaptive reuse, both.
- 02
Interior architecture
Restaurants, hotel public realm, retail, civic interiors. The rooms guests measure the brand by — designed at 1:1 scale, detailed at 1:5.
- 03
Material direction
Stone, lime plaster, oiled wood, hand-finished metal. Sourced from quarry, lime-pit and forge — and signed off on the sample table, in person.
- 04
Daylight, light & atmosphere
Daylight studies, integrated lighting, acoustic detailing, soft furnishing. The qualities of a room you can't draw on a plan.
- 05
Built coordination
Alongside Hemco for the kitchen, Kerning Hospitality for the operation, Kerning Studio for the wayfinding. One coordinated set of drawings — instead of four.
Working principles
Five rules of the studio.
These are the working rules — what we expect of a project before we take it on, and what a client can expect of us once we have. They are how we keep the practice small without letting the standard slip.
- 01
One studio, one drawing set
Architecture, interiors, joinery, lighting — coordinated by the studio, not handed off to subcontractors who never meet.
- 02
Material before mood-board
We sample stone, plaster, wood and metal before we paint the renderings. The material decides the room, not the other way around.
- 03
Soft pencil first
Hand sketches and physical models lead the early stage. Software comes once the proportions and the section feel right.
- 04
On site through construction
The drawings are revised on site, with the trades. The studio principal is at every milestone — not the marketing material's principal, the actual one.
- 05
Fewer projects, taken longer
We turn down more work than we accept. Each project gets the studio's full attention for the calendar year it deserves.
Direct
For specifications, partnership enquiries, or to commission a project — write to us.
hello@hemcogroup.com