Couture construction, a tailor’s habits on a building site

NU Projects was founded by Nick Jeffries in 2010, and the way the studio works owes more to a tailor than to a builder. Clients in Kensington and Chelsea started calling us the Gucci builders. The name stuck, but the habits behind it are the part worth writing down.

Measure first, cut once

A tailor measures a body before touching cloth. We survey a house before anybody draws it. Room by room, level by level, including the parts nobody wants to think about: the drain runs, the party wall position, the floor build up, the head height under the beam you are about to add.

The measurement is what makes the price real. Cut from the wrong measurement and you are paying twice, once for the mistake and once for the correction.

The inside is finished as carefully as the outside

A good jacket is finished where nobody looks. The same is true of a house. Behind a wall are the routes the services take, the noggins in the joists, the insulation and the access you will need in ten years when a pump fails.

Nobody photographs any of that. It is the difference between a house that behaves and a house that annoys you.

One fitting, then another

Nothing is right the first time. A tailor fits a garment twice before it is finished, and a design gets the same treatment here: drawn, priced, reviewed against buildability, drawn again. That is what the studio structure is for, with architectural designers, interior designers and a quantity surveyor in one room.

The cloth matters, and so does the cut

Good material badly cut is a waste of good material. Stone, timber, glass and metal all reward being set out properly and punish being decided late. Kitchens, wardrobes and fitted furniture are made by Cochrane Bespoke, our joinery partner, drawn with the room they are going into.

London property has traditionally been built the way it has always been built. There is another way to do it, and it is the tailor’s way: measure, cut once, finish the inside.

If you would like your house looked at that way, tell us about it, or call the studio on 020 7731 6841.