Of all the materials we work with, concrete carries the most prejudice. It is associated with brutalist towers and grey car parks, with everything impersonal and unlovable about modern construction. But concrete is also the material of the Roman Pantheon, of the great Mediterranean reservoirs, of bridges that have outlasted empires. Its story depends entirely on how it is used.

We use concrete with restraint and respect. A cast-in-situ concrete wall, formed carefully and left to cure at its own pace, develops a surface that records the process of its making — the grain of the formwork, the variation of the mix, the subtle colour changes from pour to pour.

In our projects, concrete appears where it is the most honest answer: as a retaining wall against a hillside, as a cantilevered stair that needs no support, as a thermal mass that cools a courtyard house. We never paint it, rarely render it. The material is allowed to be itself.

This is the first in a series on the materials we build with. Each material — stone, timber, lime, ceramic — has a story worth telling. Because buildings are made of stories, held in place by materials.