Dyer Grimes Architecture

Great practice. We have provided specialist glass design and installation services to Dyer Grimes projects and have always found their design work sharp and resolved. From a subcontractors perspective its great news when you win a package and find all the tricky detailing resolved already!

We initially stumbled over Dyer Grimes while searching the Internet looking for architects to look after the conversion of four flats into one. After interviewing several architects it became immediately clear that we wanted to appoint Dyer Grimes. So what made the difference? Besides from the fact that we love their work, John Dyer Grimes, Michael Gwynn (Associate Architect), Leila Latchin (Interior Designer) and John Rookyard (Project Manager) showed their ability to listen carefully to what we wanted and come back with great solutions to how to achieve it and make it even better. John Dyer Grimes rightfully prides himself as someone who really understands what he's doing. The team was always very responsive and available to discuss issues and changes that were inevitable for any project of this nature. An architect is only as good as the builder who delivers the goods. Kevin Gale, from Gallowers Builders, was instrumental in delivering the project to the highest standard. We all had really good fun as well. Would we work with the team again - absolutely!

I commissioned Dyer Grimes Architects to design a new home on the site of my mother’s bungalow in Wimbledon Village, and to help us to secure planning permission to build this new development. I had an initial meeting with John Dyer-Grimes and Head of Creative Design, Liam Foley where we discussed ideas on a basic level, coming to the agreement that, because of the odd shape of the site – long and thin – a modern design would make best use of the available space. As a novelist and mother of three young children, I have very little time and after the initial brief I left the team at Dyer Grimes, led by Liam Foley as Head of Creative Design, to design the building with no further input from myself. The design that they came back with was fantastic: a stunning, light modern white rendered house that made the best use of the limited site space available. My mother and I were happy to agree to proceed to planning with the initial design that they presented to us, with no alterations. Because the site in a conservation area, we were concerned that it might prove difficult to get the project through planning. However Dyer Grimes worked very closely with our Planning Officer at every stage of the process, so that when it came to the decision meeting, she was firmly on our side, and despite some objections from surrounding residents who didn’t like the modern design of the building, planning was awarded. I cannot speak highly enough of the team at Dyer Grimes, and in particular John and Liam. They are both highly professional, a pleasure to work with and delivered a result – both in terms of building design and ease of planning approval – far in excess of our expectations.

Having found our dream plot of land, we started the daunting task of choosing the right architect to work with us on building our family home. What struck us about JDG was the passion for immaculate design as well as an obsessive focus on the detail. Given we were attempting to build a contemporary modern sustainable home on a tight budget this gave us comfort that it could be done. Having taken our design brief the JDG team came up with a design that we both fell in love with, and addressed the primary challenge of designing a house that could be both modern / contemporary and yet a family home. We received planing at the first attempt which given the history of the site (5 years of applications and still no build) was a credit to the strategy employed by the JDG team. Throughout the detailed design stage the team continually came up with great detailed ideas on all aspects of the design ranging from lighting, colours, through to our beautiful cantilevered staircase

After falling in love with a rather ramshackle Victorian house we were then left with the daunting task of refurbishing and it to make it into our family home. Having never done anything like this before the job turned out to be much bigger than we anticipated and after a lot of delays & problems we had lost confidence in the project & ourselves. Our first meeting with John restored our confidence & got us excited about the house again & what could be done. John & the team are very personable and professional. They listened to us, took on board what we wanted to achieve and immediately gave us ideas and suggestions about how we could go about fulfilling those goals, explaining how by thinking about the entire house as a whole would be better than just limiting our alterations to one area as we had previously envisaged. Its a testament to the design that when you look at the house everything works as a family home, retains the charm of the original house & has been brilliantly modernised. Its exactly what we wanted. Working with the team at Dyer Grimes has been great fun & we couldn't be happier with our finished home.