Let's start with what we know about you...
You have a project and are looking for an architect to guide you through the process of creating the home you desire. You have ambitions, ideas, a budget and a timeframe, but you are unsure what is feasible. You know that employing an architect will add value to your home and the quality of your life. You appreciate that our fee reflects the personal service and attention to detail you will experience working with us. You want an experienced professional who listens, understands your needs and develops feasible solutions.
These needs are fundamental, but you also want more...
You want to live in a considered home that uniquely reflects you, a beautiful home for you and others to enjoy. And you want that home to provide year-round comfort with healthy and inspiring spaces. And because you understand your decisions and actions impact other people's lives, you welcome the opportunity to make a better world with a sustainable and energy-efficient project. You are ambitious and aware that making the home you want, without the right team, is not straightforward.
So here is a little more about who we are and what we believe…
We've spent our working lives helping shape people's lives for the better, and would love to do the same for you – whether you live in a tight Victorian terrace that's not quite working for you and your family, whether you simply want your house to be a more welcoming, more peaceful space to return to each evening, or whether you really are ready to make that Passivhaus a reality.
We are a wife and husband team, partners in life and business, meaning architecture fills our holidays and conversations. For us, your project will always be personal.
We're the perfect combination of Italian flair and Canadian pragmatism, and when you bring us on board, you get both that creativity and that practical mindset from start to finish.
Daniela is the visionary and the blue-sky thinker, and she comes up with the concepts, the interiors, the colours, and the lighting. With her mindful approach, she ensures that the design intent is carried through in detail. Greg is the one who keeps a tight hold of the budget and the schedule. He knows how to take a house apart and then how to put it back together so that it works like a dream, with every detail executed perfectly.
Good buildings affect us in so many positive ways – we sleep more soundly, think more clearly, and breathe more easily. We can't all live in a beautiful Passivhaus between the sea and the mountains (that's our own dream!), but we can all make our homes happier, healthier places.
We love seeing the impact our work has on our clients. They feel healthier, happier, less stressed, and more rested. And they feel wealthier too – in their minds, if not on paper. Our clients talk about their new spaces as uplifting, rewarding, and even magical. Hearing them talk like this makes it all worthwhile.
Daniela Ciarcelluti
Design Director
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If you ask me about my childhood, I would tell you about running in the fields behind my home with the sun setting behind the Apennines, the calm of the pastel colours of the Adriatic Sea, and the warmth of the sand in the summer. These environments inspire. So did the many architecture magazines that circulated our home, which were a strong contrast to the dull buildings I frequented.
Spaces affect our mood and how we interact with people. These experiences shaped my love for architecture and my desire to create better places for everyone.
Whilst training, my curiosity and eagerness to learn took me across Europe and to North America. I studied architecture at the University G. d'Annunzio, in my hometown of Pescara, I participated in exchanges with the University of Waterloo (Canada) and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). I also gained practical training in Toronto, Canada, and worked for the renowned architect Joao Mendes Ribeiro in Coimbra, Portugal.
With Greg, whom I met during university, I moved to London in 2006. We were excited by the positive cultural energy and the potential the city offered. I continued to hone my design and technical skills on a variety of projects in the commercial and residential sectors while working for notable UK practices such as Buckley Grey Yeoman and John McAslan & Partners.
As founder and director of Ciarcelluti Mathers Architecture, I am responsible for the creative direction of the projects. I enjoy listening to clients, understanding their needs, and helping them articulate the issues and our ideas and solutions. My critical sensibility and eye for good design help me think outside the box and find unique solutions to clients' problems, whether addressing a lack of space or the desire for more daylight.
I won't settle for the status quo. I use my expertise to take different challenges and constraints and make them work together to devise a working whole. Through my work, I have transformed clients' spaces and experiences.
I use my multidisciplinary interests (lighting, health, psychology and art) to create spaces that make people feel better and inspired and make everyday life more magical. Working alongside Greg, I am proud to contribute to people's quality of life and wealth.
Greg Mathers
Managing and Technical Director
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My childhood home in Canada was surrounded by nature: trees, birds, and sometimes deer just outside our windows. This gave me an appreciation for nature and the freedom to explore and create. Outdoor building projects led to indoor sketching and design project, and I decided to study architecture early on. Throughout my career, I have been interested in sustainability, but recognizing the significant impact buildings have on the natural world has motivated me to find the best ways to build and adapt our buildings sustainably.
My determination led me to study architecture and the University of Waterloo, which provided international study and work experience opportunities. Before graduating, I had worked for architects in Canada, New York City and New Zealand. Studying in Italy exposed me to working with historic buildings and led to meeting my future wife and business partner. This led to merging these interests for my master's thesis, which focused on the sustainable transformation of a mediaeval Italian hill town.
Subsequently, living and working in Italy helped me develop critical skills such as flexibility and resourcefulness. I tutored Canadian and Italian architecture students while working in local practices, which provided the unique opportunity to act as a project architect for converting a 16th-century convent into a large private family home.
In the UK, I have worked for award-winning practices on various projects across the arts, commercial, conservation, and education sectors, giving me broad experience at all stages and specific experience in the technical design and delivery of listed buildings, conversions and domestic projects.
My passion for retrofitting existing buildings stems from my practical mindset and "how-to" approach to problem-solving. As a certified Passivhaus designer, I have a technical understanding of building performance and sustainability, which I apply to my work to ensure we build the best homes possible. I believe that my broad experience and balanced approach to sustainability enable me to find feasible solutions to each project's unique challenges. As managing director of our practice, I am dedicated to developing in-house systems that maximise our work's quality, consistency, and efficiency, ensuring that we deliver the best possible results for our clients.
My vision is to make buildings more compatible with the natural world and enhance our connection to the outdoors from within. Nothing makes me happier than to have clients tell me how our work has led to daily experiences that have transformed the quality of their life at home.