James Mearns

James completed his Part I at the University of Bath, spending a semester as an Erasmus student at the Technische Universität München, and graduated in 2020. He is interested in creating an architecture that is resolutely honest, clear in its tectonics, and makes best use of the right resources in the right places. His favourite buildings are those that are imbued with an appreciation of the context that they occupy, underpinned by a rational and reasoned approach to design. Most recently he has been investigating the potentials of interdisciplinary environments housed within flexible, demountable construction; working with economies of means that maximise circularity and efficiency in both construction and use, minimising waste across a project’s physical and temporal cycles.

Between his undergraduate studies James worked on housing and conservation projects at a number of small practices in London. This concurrence of study and practice is a programme of development that he is looking forward to sustaining during his time at the LSA; since graduating he has been working with Haworth Tompkins, alongside volunteering for a local Wildlife Trust, and will continue to do so in parallel with his studies.