Studio DERA

Studio DERA is a London architecture practice founded in November 2020 by Max Dewdney and Marcel Rahm, working from Bradbury Works in Dalston. Both combine practice with teaching at the University of Greenwich and The Bartlett, UCL, and the studio runs material research with an emphasis on natural, low-carbon construction.

Projects run from bespoke houses to education, culture and community buildings. At Waltham Forest College the studio converted a disused swimming pool into a teaching space of almost 1,000 square metres, retrofitting rather than rebuilding to keep embodied carbon in place, with triple glazing, all-electric systems and a timber stage that cut predicted operational energy to 90 kWh/m² a year. Hempcrete workshops and a community centre came before it, and participatory design shaped the plan.