Research

We design, teach and foster talent, write and share our thoughts about architecture with the wider public as well as the profession. Our intention is to open up the world of architecture and invite people in, to explore and learn about the role of spatial design in our lives.
Our work acknowledges that good architecture requires multi-headed teams, comprised of people with specialisms in different fields that have discovered ways to work collaboratively and share authorship. 

This is why we always strive to engage in a conversations with practitioners as well as academics, with our clients but also the public sector and the general public, to address changing global needs and to empower each party to questions assumptions, learn lessons from failures and successes, and together discover better solutions. 

To stimulate this kind of dialogue, we give lectures, write, broadcast, hold advisory roles and engage in a varied range of research and teaching activities. We have led studios a number of leading UK universities, including the Royal College of Art, Architectural Association, London Metropolitan University and Cambridge University, as well as internationally, in Switzerland, the USA and, most recently, in Spain, where Deborah Saunt currently teaches a design studio at the University of Navarra in Pamplona

In 2015, Deborah's agency as an educator and innovator led her help co-found the London School of Architecture (LSA) with an innovative pedagogical model aimed at creating a vibrant and dynamic research platform among the students and the practices involved in the school, harnessing the power of collaborative endeavour and shared purpose to engage in global design conversations at the forefront of the discipline. 

In the past decade, DSDHA has twice been awarded the Research Fellowships in the Built Environment, by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, in 2010 and then in 2016. The first grant supported the development of conceptual ideas for the Commission’s legacy estate in South Kensington, which then eventually turned into a public realm project for the Royal Albert Hall (currently under development). The second grant instead involved DSDHA in a study on how to better integrate cycling infrastructure in London’s public spaces.

At our heart, DSDHA seeks to recast the definition of what constitutes architecture and use our spatial intelligence and research skills to develop strategies which deliver the best solutions to the most, for the least.
  1. Projects
  2. Projects
  3. Research
  4. Research