About Up

We are a design-driven practice who specialise in bespoke house refurbishments, extensions, new-build houses, interior fit-outs and commercial and hospitality projects across London. We are interested in creating spaces that are both functional and visually striking, and that also meet the brief of our clients exactly and fully.

Our extensive experience in various sectors and our working relationship with a number of high quality contractors allows us to deliver projects to the highest standards, with the least amount of stress for our clients, often on restricted budgets. We like to think our commitment to quality shows clearly in our work, and our diligence and professionalism is amply evidenced by the postive feedback from people who have worked with us in the past.

The Team

Marty McColl

Marty is the architectural director at Up Architects and has over 15 years of experience in the design and delivery of small and medium scale projects across multiple sectors, with particular expertise in residential developments, F+B, hospitality and retail fit outs and education projects.

Marty has worked on many new build, refurbishment and heritage projects in London and has experience in working sensitively with listed buildings and buildings within conservation areas and uses his in depth knowledge of building techniques and procurement processes to deliver high quality building projects within restricted budgets.

Amanda Kelly

Amanda is the interiors director at Up Architects and is managing director of our sister company Zeal Kitchens and Interiors Projects. Amanda is an interior designer with over 10 years experience in delivering complex and high value interiors projects over a variety of sectors but specialises in high end residential, retail and commercial fit outs.

Amanda loves to get involved with the clients early on in a project to really understand what underpins their vision, how they will live/work/play in the finished spaces and what they really want to get out of their project at a very personal level.

Diana Cirne

Diana is an ARB-qualified architect with over 10 years of experience in designing and delivering a wide range of projects, including hotels, retail units, restaurants, and high-end residential spaces.

With commercial and hospitality expertise gained from her work in The Netherlands, Qatar, Lisbon, Brighton, and London, Diana leads our hospitality and F&B projects, bringing a unique international perspective to each endeavour.

Emma Chong

Emma is an ARB qualified Architect with over 6 years of experience in the design and delivery of numerous new apart-hotels, retail units, restaurants and high end residential projects.

She is adept at running projects and is used to working with clients, consultants and contractors having worked on both small scale domestic projects and larger commercial projects, through all the RIBA stages.

Ola Dudziak

Ola is an ARB qualified architect with experience in community housing schemes, self build projects and sensitive historic building projects.

Ola trained at the Mackintosh School, with experience ranging from large scale international projects to bespoke artistic projects.

Design Approach

Up Architects are committed to creating the best and most beautiful architecture and interiors from any project we are involved in, large or small.

We believe that to achieve truly successful design all of its various aspects have to be rigorously thought through at every stage, without cutting corners. This approach results in extremely well considered plans, elegant and clever spatial solutions, technically advanced construction techniques, and buildings that can be built easily, and without compromising the original vision. With a minimalist aesthetic style, an authentic approach to materials, and by paying close attention to detail, we produce beautifully crafted buildings and interiors.

Whilst many other architecture firms treat interior design as an add-on to their main services, here at Up we see interiors as an integral part of any design work we do. We like to engage early on with our clients on how they want their spaces to look and feel, as well as how they need to function and become an enhancement to their lives.

This brings a consistent richness and joy to our architectural design work as we will never end up producing anonymous spaces that don’t speak of the people occupying them, and in turn our clients feel they are getting something tailor-made for them.

Sustainability

At Up we take the issues of sustainability and climate change seriously and have made a commitment to consider all the principles underpinning sustainable, low energy, low carbon design at the earliest stages of every project.

This involves early discussions with clients about what they want to achieve in their building project and once we have them on board we design our buildings and work with contractors and suppliers to put the ideas into practice.

We concentrate on a fabric-first approach to reduce heat loss and energy consumption, promote the use of environmentally friendly materials that store carbon rather than creating carbon dioxide and try to reduce waste in the construction process. We also try to increase bio-diversity in any of the external spaces we design and consider sustainable urban drainage techniques, habitat creation and resilient design to deal with the inevitably warmer and more volatile climate that is to come.

We have a steadily growing amount of experience with renewable energy strategies and now always look to include things like heat pumps, Solar PV, MVHR, rainwater and grey water harvesting in our projects and look to take advantage of solar gain and natural shading. We are also promoting newer technologies that allow our projects to become all-electric smart properties, which is without a doubt the future of energy use in the UK as the country moves towards a net-zero energy grid.

We are particularly interested in using timber as much as possible in our buildings, as not only is it a very sustainable material that locks in carbon, but it is also a beautiful and extremely versatile one to work with. We look to move away from automatically using masonry and steel strutures in our designs and to use timber frames instead, wherever possible. This has informed the look and feel of a lot of our work, and has always been a popular choice with our clients.