Catrina Stewart and Hugh McEwen’s partnership began when the Hackney-based duo won a competition to design a shop front. Having met in their final year at The Bartlett School of Architecture in London, they set up Office S&M in 2013 soon after graduating, tapping into a lifetime of creative heritage.
‘We’ve always been drawn to art and design – we grew up in environments where making and craftsmanship were a part of everyday life,’ says Stewart, whose family lived in Tuscany and were makers of wooden toys; McEwen’s mother was a keen potter and weaver. ‘This hands-on approach continues to shape our work, allowing us to explore materials and colour in a way that brings depth and character to our interiors.’
After the shop-front project, the pair built their business gradually, first combining it with roles in architecture studios before going full time five years ago. ‘This gradual shift allowed us to develop our expertise while bringing insights from other disciplines into our work,’ explains McEwen. ‘Our approach is often multidisciplinary, drawing on a broad range of influences to create totally unique, experimental designs.’
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Characterised by bold colours and shapes, their exuberant spaces are inspired by everyday objects and 1980s designers such as Gaetano Pesce, who worked across design, architecture and fashion. His ‘experimentation with materials and processes, combined with a strong sense of narrative’ has helped to shape the duo’s output.
What are their recent projects? Park House in Hackney isn’t an average Victorian terraced home; it looks onto a Grade II-listed wall bordering the historic Abney Park arboretum. Office S&M has transformed the house into a light-filled sanctuary for two writers and their cats. With its shapely green conservatory that accommodates a kitchen-dining space and a climbing frame for felines, the project ‘fosters a deeper connection with the trees that surround the house’.
In Kensington, Moon House is a once ‘dark and dated’ townhouse reinvented for two art collectors. ‘It balances the practical needs of a functional home with the character of an art gallery,’ says Stewart. With blocks of strong colour in unexpected configurations, it has lots in common with the studio’s Mo-tel House project in Islington, a ground-floor flat for a fashion entrepreneur whose tropical palette is ‘a joyful escape from grey London’.
Many of the Mo-tel project materials were recycled, including bathroom surfaces made from melted milk bottles and terrazzo kitchen worktops incorporating marble offcuts. ‘We view waste materials as inherently valuable, finding beauty in things that are borrowed, reused and reimagined,’ says McEwen.
What are they currently working on? In keeping with their appreciation of sustainable materials, Stewart and McEwen are renovating a house where cork is the primary material across walls, floors and ceilings. ‘We’ve also used it extensively for insulation, as well as external cladding – even as an aggregate in render,’ adds Stewart. Office S&M is now designing its second MePlace children’s nursery too, following on from a previous King’s Cross venue decorated in playful pastels.
They say: ‘Our work is tactile, layered and often unexpected, designed to engage the senses and create joyful experiences.’ officesandm.com
Expert advice
Office S&M on how to get the most out of colour and materials – inside and outside
Think about colour at the start of a project. We see colour as a fundamental building material, just as integral as bricks and mortar. Test using large-scale samples – we paint onto wallpaper, which absorbs paint similarly to walls and is easy to move to different surfaces.
Tiles can be laid in many different ways, and a thoughtful pattern can elevate even the simplest design. In our Park House project, for example, we rotated standard square tiles to create a striking jagged diamond-patterned kitchen splashback.
Why limit yourself to white grout? It often gets dirty quickly, and can stand out too much against bolder tiles. Instead, we use coloured grouts like the ones by Mapei to complement or contrast with tiles, enhancing their patterns and bringing designs to life.
The story of your home can be told in different ways on the inside and outside; thinking about both can help the whole scheme work together. Designing an interior relies on light, and we can create a house exterior that will reflect more light into the space – we have done this in the past using glazed tiles and mirrored finishes.
