Matter was formed in 2016 by Roland Karthaus and Jonathan McDowell, combining the experience of their previous practices McDowell+Benedetti and Karthaus Design.

Our projects cross all building types and scales, for public and private clients. This breadth provides a rich cross-fertilisation of ideas and knowledge for our projects, which have won numerous international and national awards, and been widely published.

We focus on designing buildings and places that are sensitive to context, enduring and sustainable to improve people’s happiness and wellbeing.

Our approach is to work openly and collaboratively with our clients and teams, challenging presumptions to turn constraints into opportunities and always looking to achieve more with less.

We actively promote design excellence by engaging in many public and professional initiatives. Our work is informed by our widely-published research so that our design benefits from the strongest base of evidence and knowledge.