Houses and hotels, built for staying.
Arden & Vale is a studio of fourteen architects in Bristol. We design homes, small hotels and new lives for old buildings, and we stay with each one from the first site walk to a year after the keys change hands.
What we design
Four kinds of work, all at a scale where one partner can know every drawing.
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Houses
New homes and substantial extensions on difficult, beautiful sites. We draw the house around how you actually live, then detail it so it ages well.
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Hotels and guesthouses
Small hotels where the building does part of the hosting: the arrival, the long table, the window seat that guests write about afterwards.
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Adaptive reuse
Barns, mills and civic halls given a second working life. We keep what the old structure does well and add only what it cannot do.
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Interiors and joinery
Kitchens, libraries, bars and bathrooms drawn alongside the architecture, so walls and furniture are thought about together.
How a project runs
A typical house takes two years from first visit to moving in. A hotel takes closer to three.
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Site and brief
We walk the site with you, survey it, and write the brief together: how you live or how guests arrive, and what the budget really is.
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Concept
Two or three clear options, drawn by hand and built as card models. You choose one direction and we develop it.
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Planning and detail
The planning application, technical drawings and a specification costed with a quantity surveyor before anything goes to tender.
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On site and after
We visit every week during construction, then stay on for twelve months after handover to fix what living in the building reveals.
- Buildings completed since the studio opened in 2011
- 62
- Hotels and guesthouses now open to guests
- 19
- Countries we have built in
- 9
- Months of aftercare included on every project
- 12
“They spent the first two days just watching how the light moved across the water. The lodge they drew does exactly what that light does, and our guests notice it before they notice anything else.”
Fourteen people in a former rope works by the harbour.
Mara Arden and Tomas Vale started the studio in 2011 after a decade of building hotels for other people. We are still small on purpose: two partners, four associates, and a model shop that is busier than the printer.
Every project has a partner who draws on it, not only signs it off.
Tell us about your site.
We take on eight to ten new projects a year. Send a few lines about the place and what you hope for, and a partner will reply within five working days.