Buildings drawn with restraint, made to be lived in.
LINTEL is a small architecture and design studio. We take on a handful of houses, interiors and public rooms a year, and give each the full attention of the whole studio.
Type
Architecture & design studio
Founded
2019
Focus
Residential, cultural & adaptive reuse (small, considered, built to last)
Location
14 Guildford Lane, Melbourne VIC 3000
Fig. 01 — North elevation, Concrete Terrace, Fitzroy
Scale 1:200
[01]
Fewer compromises
[02]
Clearer plans
[03]
Quieter buildings
Clients & collaborators
Works alongside the consultants, makers and councils you already know
Guildford Lane Developments
Northcote Baths
Hearth & Co.
Merri Creek Council
Studio Ferro
Principles
Your site already knows what it wants. We listen, then draw.
Most briefs arrive with the answers already in them: where the light comes from, what the neighbours can see, what the budget will honestly carry. Four principles keep us honest about that.
LIGHT
[01]
Light
Every room earns its window. We plan from the sun path first, then let the walls follow.
MATERIAL
[02]
Material
Fewer materials, used honestly. Concrete reads as concrete, timber as timber, and both age well.
PROPORTION
[03]
Proportion
Good rooms feel right before you can say why. We draw to a module and hold to it.
[ Scroll to continue ]
Selected work
Six projects. One way of working.
Each project here is a concept — drawn to test an idea about light, structure or the way a street should feel. The approach is the same one we would bring to yours.
Northcote, VIC
2025
Hollow Brick House
Residential
A two-storey infill home organised around a single light well, with every room borrowing daylight from the centre.
Brunswick, VIC
2024
Pergola Court
Residential
A courtyard house under a timber pergola that filters western sun into something gentle.
Collingwood, VIC
2024
Stair & Landing
Adaptive reuse
A former print works reworked as a gallery, with a single concrete stair as the only new object.
Eltham, VIC
2023
Tree House Studio
Cultural
A small studio built around a eucalypt, its plan bent to keep the roots and canopy untouched.
Fitzroy, VIC
2023
Concrete Terrace
Residential
Three terraces in off-form concrete, sharing one garden wall and one long north-facing bench.
Melbourne CBD
2022
Tower Lobby
Commercial
A ground-floor lobby stripped back to structure, with new light fittings and nothing else.
[01]
Architecture
New houses, extensions and small public buildings, from first sketch to the last site visit.
[02]
Interiors
Rooms planned around how people actually use them: storage, light, acoustics, the lot.
[03]
Masterplanning
Sites of two to twenty lots, arranged so each one gets a garden and a view worth keeping.
[04]
Furniture & objects
The pieces a room still needs once the building is done: tables, joinery, lights, handles.
Process
Four stages. No surprises.
We work in the order the building gets made, and we tell you the cost of each decision while it is still cheap to change.
01
Brief
We walk the site with you, read the planning overlay, and write down what the building has to do before we draw a line.
02
Concept
Two or three honest options, drawn to scale, with rough costs attached, so the first big decision is an informed one.
03
Detail
Every junction, every material, every fixing, drawn once and drawn properly, so the builder has no reason to guess.
Who we work with
Made for the people who will live with it
Homeowners
Developers
Councils
Galleries
Hospitality
Schools
Small businesses
Collectors
Fig. 02 — Studio, Guildford Lane, 3pm
Est. 2019
The studio
A small studio, on purpose.
LINTEL was started by two architects and an industrial designer who kept being handed the same problem: good buildings made worse by the hundred small decisions nobody had time for. So the studio stays small enough that every one of those decisions gets a person.
We take on around eight projects a year. Everyone in the studio draws, everyone goes to site, and nobody is on more than three jobs at once.
People
Projects drawn
Jobs per person, max
Start a project
Send a few lines about the place, the budget you are honestly working with, and when you would like to be living in it. We reply within two business days.
New projects
Studio
14 Guildford Lane, Melbourne VIC 3000