Logos;
Thoughtful Design, Integrated Making
Shen Carter Studio is an integrated architecture, landscape design, and craftsmanship practice, based in Cheltenham and working across Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds. Our work brings together architectural design, landscape planning, and hands-on making to create distinctive buildings and landscapes developed as a coherent whole.
We believe that the craft of building is fundamental to architecture. The way materials are selected, detailed, and assembled has a direct influence on how spaces are experienced and enjoyed. By maintaining close involvement from concept through to construction, we are able to develop designs that are legible, well resolved, and grounded in the realities of making.
Our approach allows ideas to evolve holistically. Architecture and landscape are conceived together, details are tested through drawing and making, and construction is treated as a continuation of the design process rather than a separate phase. This integration provides clarity for clients, continuity across disciplines, and quality in the finished work.
Ethos;
Craft, Sustainability, and Place
We believe contemporary architecture should be sustainable, rich in character, and expressive of the time in which it is made. Our ethos brings together craft, technology, and cultural understanding, balancing innovation with respect for tradition.
We work with simple, honest materials, used with care and attention, to produce buildings and landscapes that are efficient to run, low in embodied energy, and enduring in character. As qualified Passivhaus Designers, we advocate for passive environmental design, drawing on local construction traditions, vernacular principles, and the inherent qualities of each site. Orientation, climate, topography, and material performance are treated as fundamental design drivers.
This approach is equally applicable to crafted contemporary architecture and to the sensitive adaptation of historic and listed buildings, including work within Conservation Areas and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In all cases, our aim is to create work that feels rooted, appropriate, and quietly confident.
Pathos;
Listening and Continuity
Our work begins with listening; to clients, to place, and to materials. We take time to understand how a site is formed, how it has been used, and how people wish to live within it. This attentiveness allows each project to grow from its context, shaped by real needs, lived experience, and the particular character of its setting.
We are guided by a belief that good design emerges through continuity. By understanding history, vernacular traditions, and enduring forms of construction, we draw insight that informs contemporary work. The past becomes a source of knowledge rather than reference, enabling architecture and landscapes that feel grounded, purposeful, and quietly confident in their time.
Through careful listening and thoughtful making, we aim to create places with depth and longevity. Buildings and landscapes where material, craft, and form work together naturally, and where the relationship between people and place is strengthened through clarity, care, and enduring quality.
The Stone Federation
Natural Stone Awards 2024
Our work on The Wild Garden was recognised by the Stone Federation in who ‘Highly Commended’ our work in the Traditional Handset Cladding section.
The judges noted that: “This new house has been built in a most sensitive landscape, providing both a magnificent home, meeting the client’s brief, but also having no obvious visual impact on the landscape. In fact, standing in the open countryside around this property, one feels as though the building has enhanced the landscape. The stone chosen is local and perfect for this building and its construction is as near perfect as one can be with dry stone”