The CE+CA team has a diverse range of experience and interests, yet we share a core set of values through our work. For over two decades we have undertaken work in and around Sheffield, South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the Peak District meaning we have a depth and breadth of local knowledge to bring to future projects. Our work has included new homes, house extensions and refurbishments, educational buildings, community facilities, masterplanning and regeneration strategies.
Holistic Design
We are passionate about making everyday places special. In our designs we strive to bring together creativity, technology, respect for the environment, imaginative planning, carefully crafted materials and our years of experience to create beautiful spaces that bring joy.
Context is Key
A strong awareness of context underpins and unifies our work. We are proud of the practice’s positive impact upon the unique city and region that we all call home. Our projects are borne of a unique combination of people and place, the topography, geology and materiality of a particular location, as well as its historical and social settings.
Empathetic Process
We always allow time to work closely with our clients to develop a highly appropriate, personal and sensitive set of ambitions for each project. Whilst the vital starting point for a successful scheme is to establish the brief, we believe it is also an ongoing process.
Sustainable by Design
Sustainability is at the heart of all our projects, whether that is a new build home or a church hall refurbishment. To us, ‘sustainable design’ isn’t just about green technologies. As signatories to the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge, which provides a stepped approach towards net-zero, we are working to reduce operational energy use, embodied carbon, the use of potable water and promote health and wellbeing. We do this by taking a fabric first approach, making provision for flexible use, supporting the growth of communities and avoiding unnecessary waste.
Creative Re-Use
Many of our built projects have included the careful and imaginative adaptation of existing buildings that are no longer suitable for 21st century life. We have received numerous awards for our conservation, creative re-use and deep retrofit projects. We enjoy celebrating existing buildings through an architecture which respects the past, but always looks forward.
Celebrating Craft
We are proud to collaborate with some of the most skilled contractors and fabricators in the business. The celebration of making and materiality in our projects is a common thread – a direct result of their input, expertise and trust.
Inclusive Process
We believe the design process should be transparent and inclusive, whether through close collaboration with contractors, in community-led design, working with school pupils or individual clients. Enabling discussion is key to the creation of well designed places, which in turn have the power to positively transform the ways we all live.
Forward Thinking
Members of the team regularly lead teaching at the University of Sheffield and Newcastle University – two of the top schools of architecture in the UK – delivering architectural design, technology and humanities modules at Undergraduate, Masters and PhD level. Our experience as educators has been a vital influence on CE+CA, and continues to shape our current and future practice.
OUR HISTORY
Our way of working is informed by beliefs developed over a number of years, based on methodologies which have evolved from both practice and research.
For over two decades, the current directors worked as two separate but linked practices – Prue Chiles Architects, and Bureau – design + research (Bdr). In 2015 they integrated these enterprises in Chiles Evans + Care Architects.
Our built projects are underpinned by extensive long term research by the team. This includes our major 2015 publication, Building Schools: Key Issues for Contemporary Design, which draws themes from international best practice to illustrate ways that we as architects can aspire to improve the quality of learning and teaching spaces.