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Architecture & Property
Architecture & Property · London

Where light
meets form

The Meridian Collection  ·  2026

01 — Philosophy

Architecture is not the art of shelter.
It is the art of holding light
in a particular way.

MERIDIAN approaches each project as an act of calibration — the precise angle at which a building meets its site, captures the available light, and offers it back to those who live within it. We do not build walls. We curate horizon.

Three Studies
in Light

Each MERIDIAN commission begins with an extended period of site observation — reading the land, the weather, the light before a single line is drawn.

Commercial
The Lantern Tower
Mixed-use · 22 storeys · City of London
Residential
Holt House
Private residence · Surrey · 620 m²
Cultural
The Meridian Pavilion
Arts centre · Greenwich · Public commission

Light observed
before drawn

Four deliberate phases. No shortcuts.
Every project moves through
the same unhurried sequence.

01
Observation
Reading the site

Weeks of uninterrupted study. We map solar angles, prevailing wind, seasonal change — all before a line is drawn.

02
Conception
The physical model

Every scheme starts in cardboard and balsa. The hand reveals what the screen conceals: shadow depth, material weight, threshold feel.

03
Resolution
Material & structure

Drawings mature through relentless iteration. Structure, facade and light become inseparable — resolved together, not in sequence.

04
Realisation
Built with precision

We remain on site. Construction is the final act of design — the moment where judgment and material meet for the first time.

The Lantern Tower, EC2 Bronze anodised fins · 22 storeys Completed 2024 — City of London
Signature Work — The Lantern

A building that
tells time by
the quality of its light.

The Lantern Tower was conceived as a civic instrument — a structure whose bronze facade shifts from warm amber at dawn to silver-white at noon to deep ochre as the sun falls. No two hours look the same. The building keeps its own calendar.

"We designed the facade the way a watchmaker
designs a dial — every surface in service of time."
Material
Bronze Anodised
Height
87 metres
Completed
2024
05 — The Practice

Made by hand
before machine

Before any digital model is made, each project begins in physical form — cardboard, balsa, cast plaster. The hand reveals what the screen conceals: shadow depth, material weight, the feel of a threshold.

Our studio holds a library of over 1,200 physical models spanning four decades of practice. They are not records. They are the actual work — still thinking, still asking questions.

42
Projects built
18
Awards won
1,200+
Physical models

"The model is not a representation of the building.
It is the building, at one to two hundred."
— Principal Architect, MERIDIAN Studio

05
Recognition
RIBA National Award
2024
Stirling Prize Longlisted
2023
BD Architect of the Year
2022
World Architecture Festival
2021
Civic Trust Award
2019
1987

Where rigour
becomes revelation

MERIDIAN was founded in London in 1987 by Edmund Marsh and Clara Fell, who shared the conviction that architecture's highest obligation is to light — to find it, shape it, and give it back to the people who inhabit the buildings they make.

Four decades on, that founding conviction is unchanged. Every project begins with the same question: at what moment of the day does this site offer its best light, and how do we build for that moment?

"We are not in the business of buildings.
We are in the business of inhabited light."

38
Years practice
42
Completed builds
18
Awards
12
Countries
07 — Begin a Project

Every site has
its perfect building

We take on a limited number of commissions each year. Enquiries are welcomed from clients who believe that architecture should outlast its moment.

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