Lumley & Koller



Projects  -  Research  -  About us 





 
   













Lumley & Koller is an architectural partnership of practice and research, formed by Jess Lumley and Alexander Koller in 2012.

We work on a range of architectural and research projects in Britain and overseas, including domestic and historic buildings, charity-based and educational projects.

Our interests cover a wide area of architectural history, which helps us find reference points and orientation and challenges current orthodoxies and fads. We aim to approach architecture both from a purely formal angle and within its wider context; the former serves to sharpen our eye constantly for the quality of forms per se, the latter to understand practical and cultural exigencies, technical complexities and materials.

We try to learn from all the beauty and all the ugliness that surrounds us and to see our work as needing to fit into a narrative, sometimes a local one or a personal one, at other times historical or philosophical. The response requires sometimes sensitivity, at other times boldness, hopefully never making a statement for its own sake and, equally hopefully, not missing any opportunities for one either.

We travel extensively to study different architectural strategies and vernaculars. These provide a rich visual memory & background from which we think and design. We find that previous architectural solutions can re-inform the ways in which we conceive architecture and its use.














Jess Koller Lumley

Jess has extensive architectural experience on a wide range and scale of architectural projects, from small scale domestic, to delicate restorations of historic buildings, to larger-scale cultural and hospitality projects in Great Britain and Asia.

Jess grew up in Cambridge and studied architecture at Cambridge and at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

Prior to forming Lumley & Koller, Jess was an associate at Ash Sakula Architects in London. All Jess’s projects there as project architect have won RIBA awards.

Subsequently, Jess taught architectural design at Hong Kong University and has been a visiting critic at architectural reviews at the AA, LMU and UCA.

As well as studying verncular architecture with Alex, most recently Jess has been working on residential projects in Norfolk and Kent, including large Listed Buildings and a Pilgrims’ Centre in Walsingham.
Alexander Koller

Alex has a background in Art and Architectural History combined with languages and tourism. Over the last 20 years, through his work, he has built on his knowledge in these fields and gained extensive experience in cultures and tourism.

Alex grew up in Vienna & studied History of Art at the Universities of Vienna and Salzburg.  He completed his PhD in 1998 at Magdalene College, Cambridge, with a thesis on English glass-painting of the post-Reformation period. 

In 2012 Alex joined Jess to work on architectural projects. His extensive knowledge of architectural solutions in a range of traditions in Europe and Asia forms a foundation for the work of the practice.
 
Alex is currently involved in research on the classical temple architecture of Cambodia and vernacular domestic architecture in the Balkans and the Caucasus. 

He has published on his chosen PhD subject, and aspects of English and Asian art and architecture. More recently, Alex and Jess have published on Vernacular Architecture in Bulgaria, Journal of Architecture and Alex in The Royal Asiatic Society Journal on Cambodiian and Burman Architecture.










31-32 Fort Crescent,
Margate, CT9 1HX
Great Britain

(+44) 1843 446 149
info@lumleykoller.com