Founded in early 2012 by friends Max, Jamie & Patrick, SOUP Architects started as a small practice with some big ambitions.
All working in other practices before SOUP, we were able to draw on over 60 years worth of industry experience to develop a new, young and dynamic practice that focussed on giving our clients the best possible professional service and continue to develop our approach to architecture and design.
With over 89 completed projects, 5 RIBA Awards and 2 studios since 2012, SOUP has gained a momentum that none of us expected.
We are friendly, approachable, and able to tailor our services to meet the needs of projects from small extensions, up to multi-unit housing developments. We are proud that most of our work comes to us through recommendations, with former clients often becoming great friends.
We are passionate about inspiring others and sharing our work and methods, and are often invited to lecture at universities.
Everyone who works at SOUP has something different to add to the SOUP. We embrace a design dialogue within the practice and hope that by challenging each other, the design gets more refined. We encourage our clients to engage in this process too, as we believe that it makes it far more enjoyable, but also results in a much better result.
In 2016 SOUP Director Jamie Le Gallez purchased a dilapidated barn in St. Saviours dating back to 1858. The listed barn is a typical two storey granite structure set within a small farmstead.
The brief was to design a new energy efficient, low maintenance house filled with natural light for a couple and their extended family when they visit. The Longis View house is orientated to maximise the spectacular coastal views to the south of the site whilst retaining the sense of intimacy, set slightly into the hillside to the north.
The original house was a timber framed Colt House (see info below) extended by a previous owner with a two-storey brick addition in the 1990’s. The site is approximately a mile inland from the Suffolk Coast and surrounded by a number of individual residential properties set within generous well-established landscaped plots.
We were asked to look at renovating and extending an existing 4-bedroom house on a long north/south axis site in Surrey. The existing house had a very poor connection to a fantastic rear garden. The plot is on the bend of the road and makes the Oatlands Close house sit at an angle to the long rear garden, which for us created an interesting dynamic and great opportunity.
The Broombank House is set into the banks of the sloped site and accessed via a single-track lane that arrives into a sunken entrance courtyard, offering glimpses of the views beyond. The brief from our client was to create a relaxed contemporary house within a reconsidered, ‘natural’ landscape that blurred the site boundaries to its neighbours and adjoining marshland.