We enhance the existing fabric of your space – celebrating your community’s past while making a difference for the future

Knock Nothing Down

Whatever the nature of your project, our aim is to retain as much of the existing fabric of your space as possible. This isn’t just because we’re passionate about sustainability. It’s also because buildings and structures have played an important role in your community’s past and deserve to be part of its future. 

Our sculptural approach to the design process was formulated by our co-founder, the late Professor Will Alsop. Proudly continuing his incredible legacy, we kickstart every project with a blank canvas on the painting wall in our London studio – then develop our creations in design reviews that involve all our emerging and established designers and architects.

We aim high. We believe that fun is an integral part of all design and architecture. And we’ve found that achieve we the most when you’re involved in the creative process, too. Every project we work on is characterised by ambition and collaboration, enabling us to create iconic spaces that celebrate the past while making a difference for the future.

Retain, Create, Enhance

Our approach focuses on celebrating the past and as we create for the future. So we enhance – by building above and below, and by integrating the public realm.

We’re pioneers of meanwhile spaces – creating buzz around old buildings prior to development to foster community involvement. We love street creatures – temporary or permanent sculptural structures that reveal themselves to be surprisingly functional. And we love experimenting – with our TESTBEDS becoming hubs of debate, brainstorming, investigation and creativity as we explore ideas, concepts and products that have never been thought of before.

A natural consequence of our ‘knock nothing down’ approach, meanwhile spaces engage and excite communities prior to development. By reimaging existing buildings and the spaces between them – building above, below or even through existing architecture – we transform environments with interventions that are often simple to implement.

From pop-up markets to cafes and art venues, meanwhile spaces enrich the cultural life of communities while allowing time to plan more permanent structures – though often there’s scope to retain them when development goes ahead.

From temporary pop-up spaces – market stalls or installation pieces for exhibitions, for example – to permanent creations, street creatures are site-specific pieces of sculptural architecture with an often-surprising function.

Leveraging fine art techniques to produce architectural ideas, aLL Design’s street creature portfolio includes Neuron Pod at London’s Queen Mary University – an iconic steel structure with fibre-optic hairs that light up at night.

At aLL Design, we work in all scales – designing teaspoons, cities and everything between. Our product designers are detail-orientated creatives who visualise each project in its entirety.

TESTBEDs give us the space and freedom to experiment – by drawing on walls, by adding bicycle wheels to a bar, by designing lighting, furniture and shelving for an art gallery.

For example, a concept for an apartment scheme in Canada evolved into a range of tableware products, for use on dining tables, in living spaces, in buildings – with every element designed and created by us.