Month: April 2018

Come and Join Us at Grand Designs  

In just a few days, we are off to Grand Designs Live at the Excel in London. As a studio, our values are simple; inventive design, client centred processes and a practice with a conscience. So, what we want with our stand at grand designs is to retain the heart in what we do; no small task in only a 3 x 4 space.

What better way then, than to take our studio (or a corner of it) to grand designs. This idea works for us on many levels; it represents the transparency we have in our process by giving a sneak peek into our studio and working life as a design team and more than this, it reflects our sustainable ethos.

Our stand reuses materials and furniture directly from our studio meaning we are not buying new or creating waste; all our furniture will have a life beyond our exhibition stand and where we do need to build or buy we are using recycled, sustainable and/or recyclable material. Our marketing materials will be printed on recycled paper with sustainable printing processes meaning we are considering the impact of not just our business but the suppliers we use too. Even our water and coffee cups are reusable and because no healthy working environment is complete without some greenery, our office plants are enjoying a well-earned “holiday” to the show.

We also recognise that for many of our clients, family can be one of the central reasons to embark on a project. If you are bringing your children with you to the show and you want to have a chat with us about your garden or landscape scheme, there will even be some diggers (albeit toy ones) to entertain the miniature self-builders whilst we catch up about your project.

And if all that doesn’t persuade you to come join us at Grand Designs Live, we want to see you there so much that we are currently running a competition on Instagram to win a night in a 4* London hotel and 2 tickets to grand designs on Saturday 12^th May. To enter head to our Instagram and other social media platforms or click here.

We look forward to seeing you there and as a thank you for joining us head to stand G2 close to the entrance of the Grand Gardens section of the show for a free consultation or if you’d like to book a specific time to see us, head to our Ask the Expert page here. We would love to hear more about your project.

Natural Swimming Pools: simple, sustainable and good for you. 

Over the past few months here at Studio 31, we have seen an increasing trend towards specification of natural pools in our residential projects, so we thought we would take the opportunity to tell you a bit about them.

Natural pools are not a new concept. Consider for example the onsen’s of Japan and the hot springs of Scandinavia. We will concede that these are more associated with bathing than swimming but none the less illustrate human’s affinity with naturally occurring water. Varieties of natural swimming pools became popular in Austria in the 1980s and over the intervening decades have been used on quite a wide-ranging scale as part of both private and public realm schemes across Europe.

Aesthetics

Natural pools can be designed in a whole variety of styles, shapes and sizes. They can have a plant filtration system which is ideal for cooler climates like the UK or, for those who prefer a more traditional pool look, a gravel filtration system can be used. Fewer people swim during the winter months than the summer so a natural pool means that when you are not using it for its primary function, you aren’t left looking at a pool cover but instead an unusual and interesting natural feature in the landscape. Natural pools are so diverse in design, that they can be carefully integrated into most schemes and to meet most clients needs .

Cost Effectiveness and Maintenance

Contrary to popular belief, these pools have a very similar installation cost to a traditional swimming pool. More than this though, they actually serve to save you money in the long-term maintenance of them. Traditional swimming pools require regular Ph checks and chlorine addition to keep them clean and safe to use. Natural pools let nature do the hard work for you and their maintenance costs (in both time and monetary terms) are substantially lower than their traditional counterparts.

Sustainability

Natural pools increase biodiversity, use less energy and eliminate the need for use of chemicals. Don’t worry though, you won’t be swimming among weeds or tadpoles, all the plant and associated animal life tends to stay in the separate section of the pool designed for plants and they filter the water from there.

Our design team are busy working on several current projects incorporating natural pools, all at various stages of design and build. They are not only a joy to design but have the potential to positively impact wellbeing through not only the health benefits of exercise but also the associated wellbeing benefits of being immersed (in this case literally) in nature.

For more information on designing a natural pool, get in touch or do feel free to follow the progress of our natural pool projects as they come to life.