Before drawing a façade or laying out a floor it is worth pausing on a question that seems obvious and is not: who are we designing for? The easy answer is "for whoever commissions the work". The true answer is far broader, and it changes the way we design.
Space is never neutral
Every building has an effect. Space enables or hinders people's behaviours, it attracts or repels, and those behaviours, day after day, become culture. Drawing a line on a sheet of paper is a responsibility, because that line will one day be a wall: it will decide how you enter, where people meet, how much light comes in, what you see from the street.
The client is broader than whoever commissions
When we ask ourselves who our client is, the answer goes beyond whoever signs the brief. The client is whoever will inhabit those spaces every day, even without knowing them in person. It is whoever walks down the street and finds themselves in front of a new piece of architecture they had not asked for. It is the energy, the environment, the ecosystem on which we intervene, and the generations to come. None of them asked us for anything, and yet every project, by imposing itself, takes something from each of them.
Giving back more than you take
Hence our duty: to give back more than we take, to generate for each of those clients more value than the project subtracts. It is a demanding principle, and it does not remain an intention: it becomes a design criterion. It means reading the context before imposing yourself, integrating with what already exists, building spaces that last and know how to adapt, and taking responsibility for the environmental impact instead of passing it downstream.
From responsibility to project
Concretely, this thinking guides precise technical choices. Sustainability becomes a measurable fact – less consumption, more comfort, buildings certified LEED, NZEB and WELL – because the impact on environment and ecosystem is part of the reckoning. Attention to context shapes volumes, materials and the relationships with the surroundings. Durability – choice of materials, maintenance, flexibility – ensures that value endures over time, including for those who will live in those spaces twenty years from now. It is the way an ethical principle becomes architecture.
In one line
The client of a project includes anyone that project touches, today and tomorrow. Recognising this is the first responsibility of those who design, and it is the reason why space, for us, is never neutral. This is what we mean when we say your space our project.