PROGRAMM WORKS©
Set the groundworks.
A spatial brief, specific enough to build from and unique enough not to be copied.
Set the groundworks.
A spatial brief, specific enough to build from and unique enough not to be copied.
Building ventures for longevity at the earliest possible stage.
THE APPROACH
THE APPROACH
A space designed for aesthetics will produce a beautiful photograph.
A space designed for the person inside on an ordinary Tuesday will produce something harder to quantify and more commercially durable.
A space designed for aesthetics will produce a beautiful photograph.
A space designed for the person inside on an ordinary Tuesday will produce something harder to quantify and more commercially durable.
Most projects don't fail at the drawings. They fail at assumptions underneath the drawings: who this is for, the gap you're entering, your operational and experiential overlaps. Assumptions that go untested, and which surface weeks into spatial coordination, exactly when it is expensive to be wrong.
Groundworks is designed to happen before all of that.
We test the assumptions and highlight the opportunities while it is still cheap.
Most projects don't fail at the drawings. They fail at assumptions underneath the drawings: who this is for, the gap you're entering, your operational and experiential overlaps. Assumptions that go untested, and which surface weeks into spatial coordination, exactly when it is expensive to be wrong.
Groundworks is designed to happen before all of that.
We test the assumptions and highlight the opportunities while it is still cheap.
Groundworks
Groundworks
Includes:
Includes:
(001)
Assumptions Audit
Every assumption the project is resting on, marked confirmed, challenged or overturned. We are looking for the beliefs that are load-bearing: the ones where being wrong changes the plan rather than the paint. Most projects carry between thirty and fifty. Most founders have never seen them in a list.
Includes
Pre-brief questionnaire
Project framing
User
Market
Programme
Operation
1:1 session
Assumptions Audit
(002)
Market-Gap Read
On axes that are not price and not quality. If your positioning would still be true if a competitor said it, it isn't a position.
Includes
Comp analysis
Micro-market research
Planning policy & constraints
Sector data
Market gap map
Spatial opportunity
Strategy document
Market-Gap Read
(003)
Sensory-System Direction
The physical consequences: what the arrival has to do acoustically, what the light has to do at four in the afternoon and at nine at night, where the material budget earns its keep and where it is decoration. The operations layer that governs all five sensory elements. Targets, not adjectives.
Includes
Acoustics
Lighting
Air quality
Thermal comfort
Material & form
Operations map
Strategy document
Sensory-System Direction
(004)
Five Design Principles
Five, not twelve, each with a metric, so that when value engineering arrives in month nine the conversation is about what you are giving up rather than what you are saving.
Includes
Design intent
Metric to measure against
Consequence of losing it
1:1 session
Five Design Principles
(005)
The Claims Register
This is the one nobody else gives you. Every recommendation we make is graded A to D for the strength of the evidence behind it. A is replicated and robust. D means we believe it and cannot prove it, and here is why we believe it anyway.
Includes
Spatial recommendations
Experiential recommendations
Operational recommendations
Evidence graded
1:1 session
The Claims Register
(001)
Assumptions Audit
Every assumption the project is resting on, marked confirmed, challenged or overturned. We are looking for the beliefs that are load-bearing: the ones where being wrong changes the plan rather than the paint. Most projects carry between thirty and fifty. Most founders have never seen them in a list.
Includes
Pre-brief questionnaire
Project framing
User
Market
Programme
Operation
1:1 session
Assumptions Audit
(002)
Market-Gap Read
On axes that are not price and not quality. If your positioning would still be true if a competitor said it, it isn't a position.
Includes
Comp analysis
Micro-market research
Planning policy & constraints
Sector data
Market gap map
Spatial opportunity
Strategy document
Market-Gap Read
(003)
Sensory-System Direction
The physical consequences: what the arrival has to do acoustically, what the light has to do at four in the afternoon and at nine at night, where the material budget earns its keep and where it is decoration. The operations layer that governs all five sensory elements. Targets, not adjectives.
Includes
Acoustics
Lighting
Air quality
Thermal comfort
Material & form
Operations map
Strategy document
Sensory-System Direction
(004)
Five Design Principles
Five, not twelve, each with a metric, so that when value engineering arrives in month nine the conversation is about what you are giving up rather than what you are saving.
Includes
Design intent
Metric to measure against
Consequence of losing it
1:1 session
Five Design Principles
(005)
The Claims Register
This is the one nobody else gives you. Every recommendation we make is graded A to D for the strength of the evidence behind it. A is replicated and robust. D means we believe it and cannot prove it, and here is why we believe it anyway.
Includes
Spatial recommendations
Experiential recommendations
Operational recommendations
Evidence graded
1:1 session
The Claims Register
(001)
Assumptions Audit
Every assumption the project is resting on, marked confirmed, challenged or overturned. We are looking for the beliefs that are load-bearing: the ones where being wrong changes the plan rather than the paint. Most projects carry between thirty and fifty. Most founders have never seen them in a list.
Includes
Pre-brief questionnaire
Project framing
User
Market
Programme
Operation
1:1 session
Assumptions Audit
(002)
Market-Gap Read
On axes that are not price and not quality. If your positioning would still be true if a competitor said it, it isn't a position.
Includes
Comp analysis
Micro-market research
Planning policy & constraints
Sector data
Market gap map
Spatial opportunity
Strategy document
Market-Gap Read
(003)
Sensory-System Direction
The physical consequences: what the arrival has to do acoustically, what the light has to do at four in the afternoon and at nine at night, where the material budget earns its keep and where it is decoration. The operations layer that governs all five sensory elements. Targets, not adjectives.
Includes
Acoustics
Lighting
Air quality
Thermal comfort
Material & form
Operations map
Strategy document
Sensory-System Direction
(004)
Five Design Principles
Five, not twelve, each with a metric, so that when value engineering arrives in month nine the conversation is about what you are giving up rather than what you are saving.
Includes
Design intent
Metric to measure against
Consequence of losing it
1:1 session
Five Design Principles
(005)
The Claims Register
This is the one nobody else gives you. Every recommendation we make is graded A to D for the strength of the evidence behind it. A is replicated and robust. D means we believe it and cannot prove it, and here is why we believe it anyway.
Includes
Spatial recommendations
Experiential recommendations
Operational recommendations
Evidence graded
1:1 session
The Claims Register
Who this is for:
Who this is for:
Hospitality
Co-living
Wellness
Longevity
If you're eyeing up a project for 2027 and are looking for support in achieving the vision, get in touch.
With a site
and conviction
Founders
You know what you want it to feel like. You have not yet written down what has to be true for that feeling to survive contact with an operating model.
With a site
and conviction
Founders
You know what you want it to feel like. You have not yet written down what has to be true for that feeling to survive contact with an operating model.
With a site
and conviction
Founders
You know what you want it to feel like. You have not yet written down what has to be true for that feeling to survive contact with an operating model.
Opening a 2nd
or 3rd site
Operators
The first one worked and know you can't create a carbon copy. You need to know which parts were the product before you evolve them four hundred miles away.
Opening a 2nd
or 3rd site
Operators
The first one worked and know you can't create a carbon copy. You need to know which parts were the product before you evolve them four hundred miles away.
Opening a 2nd
or 3rd site
Operators
The first one worked and know you can't create a carbon copy. You need to know which parts were the product before you evolve them four hundred miles away.
Brand-driven
with a funding conversation coming
Developer
You need a concept that survives underwriting, and something specific to say about the asset that isn't the same wellness paragraph as every other deck on the desk.
Brand-driven
with a funding conversation coming
Developer
You need a concept that survives underwriting, and something specific to say about the asset that isn't the same wellness paragraph as every other deck on the desk.
Brand-driven
with a funding conversation coming
Developer
You need a concept that survives underwriting, and something specific to say about the asset that isn't the same wellness paragraph as every other deck on the desk.
First sites
and independents
Brands
Some of the best briefs we have written are for people opening one thing, carefully, with their own money. If that is you do get in touch.
First sites
and independents
Brands
Some of the best briefs we have written are for people opening one thing, carefully, with their own money. If that is you do get in touch.
First sites
and independents
Brands
Some of the best briefs we have written are for people opening one thing, carefully, with their own money. If that is you do get in touch.
The brief is written against the body, not the aesthetic.
Every principle the brief produces names a target physiological state and a metric, not an adjective.
"Calm" is a vibe.
"A customer's shoulders should come down within the first 90 seconds, and the lounge holds RT between 0.4 and 0.6seconds to make that possible" is a brief you can build from.
Every principle the brief produces names a target physiological state and a metric, not an adjective.
"Calm" is a vibe.
"A customer's shoulders should come down within the first 90 seconds, and the lounge holds RT between 0.4 and 0.6seconds to make that possible" is a brief you can build from.
Groundworks
Groundworks
Pricing
Lump sum
Installments
Looking for a fractional creative director?
Ongoing brand stewardship that aligns creative outputs & messaging with commercial goals.
+£4,970/month
£4,500
(+VAT)
Assumptions audit
Market-gap read
Spatial specification
Five core experiential principles
Design-team-ready brief document
Delivery time
6 weeks
Lump sum
Installments
Looking for a fractional creative director?
Ongoing brand stewardship that aligns creative outputs & messaging with commercial goals.
+£4,970/month
£4,500
(+VAT)
Assumptions audit
Market-gap read
Spatial specification
Five core experiential principles
Design-team-ready brief document
Delivery time
6 weeks
Lump sum
Installments
Looking for a fractional creative director?
Ongoing brand stewardship that aligns creative outputs & messaging with commercial goals.
+£4,970/month
£4,500
(+VAT)
Assumptions audit
Market-gap read
Spatial specification
Five core experiential principles
Design-team-ready brief document
Delivery time
6 weeks
Continents worked across
Continents worked across
Continents worked across
Brands built and consulted on
Brands built and consulted on
Brands built and consulted on
Industries worked with
Industries worked with
Industries worked with
Gross development value completed
Gross development value completed
Gross development value completed
Join the waitlist
Six weeks. One brief to build from.
Places are limited, starting October 2026.
Be the first to know
Receive early access to our calendar, booking system and collaborations.
Exclusive insights
A blend of science, art and commercial insights that empower next gen thinking.
Join the waitlist
Six weeks. One brief to build from.
Places are limited, starting October 2026.
Be the first to know
Receive early access to our calendar, booking system and collaborations.
Exclusive insights
A blend of science, art and commercial insights that empower next gen thinking.
Join the waitlist
Six weeks. One brief to build from.
Places are limited, starting October 2026.
Be the first to know
Receive early access to our calendar, booking system and collaborations.
Exclusive insights
A blend of science, art and commercial insights that empower next gen thinking.