We are sceptical about those who claim to be innovative and do not believe in the popular idea that anything new is necessarily progress. We remain alert to all manner of possibilities for development but with respect for context and politeness at all times. We do not accept the doctrine of "Functionalism" - that the merely "useful" is ipso facto the "beautiful". To us Architecture is the noble art and we will achieve excitement and genius only when we have first had sense. Architecture is the prime art, more necessary than painting and sculpture.

History shows that when Architecture is right, the other arts will appear. The needs of the programme dictate the shape of the building, and this in turn, dictates the materials and the artistic appearance. Engineers can contrive to make almost anything stand up these days but we require that the structure is as neat and reasonable as it might be.

This country has a heritage of built forms and landscape that illustrates much of its history. Yet for several generations we have put up with the flat roofed, broken backed modern manner invented by Adolf Loos, instead of searching for something more reasonable, more interesting and more suitable to our English climate. Our practice is committed to the search for sympathetic forms best suited to the site and its context.

We are not for control and believe, for example, that it is perfectly possible to build a memorable, beautiful, and cohesive community structure of fragments. The use of the same materials controlled by substantially the same technology helps. It is possible to achieve a collective form without sacrificing the separate identity of the individual house. We believe that there is a growing acceptance of a "regular idea of architecture" and a base in trained and sympathetic craftsmen, which has grown steadily in recent years. Without a realization and consensus as to what is good our towns and cities will comprise a mishmash of disparate competing styles with no sense and order.