Every practice has a manifesto. Ours is short because each line has cost us money at least once, and we kept it anyway.
A building should be more interesting at forty than at four.
We specify for the second half of a building's life. That rules out most of what is currently fashionable and nearly everything that relies on a sealed joint. What remains is a narrow, old palette — stone, concrete, brick, timber, patinating metal — chosen because its failure is gradual and legible rather than sudden and expensive.
Whatever we build above, the street level is not ours to keep.
Every Aurelis project gives measurable ground-plane area back as public or semi-public space — unticketed, unlocked, and usable without buying anything. It is the part of a building that the most people will experience and the part that developers most reliably surrender to parking and service doors.
Orientation, mass and shade before machinery.
Mechanical systems are the last resort, not the first move. Sun path, prevailing wind and thermal mass determine the plan before a single service is drawn. Four of our completed buildings have no mechanical cooling in their primary living spaces, in climates where that is supposed to be impossible.
Never more than four projects in design at once.
A self-imposed ceiling, held since 2004. It costs us roughly six commissions a year. In exchange, every project has a director who has stood on its site more than thirty times and can account for every significant decision made on it. We have not found a way to buy that with headcount.
These sit in every contract we issue. Contractors are told at tender, not at construction, and pricing reflects them from the start.
Ask not whether a material looks good on handover day. Ask what it looks like after forty monsoons, and whether anyone will be willing to pay to fix it.
Ira Naravane, Founder
We take on four projects at a time. If you are considering a site, a collaboration or a commission, the conversation starts here — and it starts with a real person reading it.
