manufacturing taste
architectural design agency based in london
We are Manufacturing Taste.
Our spaces are not reactions to what exists.
They are provocations that shape what comes next.
Working with developers and agents, we don’t follow trends - we define them.
what is manufacturing taste?
Manufacturing Taste is a concept architecture practice that thinks with the strategic clarity of a creative agency by applying brand logic to capital assets.
Developers are competing brands. In crowded markets, buildings are chosen - or ignored - for what they signal, not just what they contain.
Occupiers are consumers making lifestyle decisions about where to live, work and belong. Design therefore cannot be generic. It must be intentional, legible and culturally aware.
We make these choices inevitable.
Manufacturing Taste operates at the earliest strategic stage of development, collaborating with branding and leasing teams to translate market positioning into architectural concept design. We define the spatial DNA of a project — plans, visual language and material direction — and remain embedded within the client team to ensure that intent is preserved through planning and technical development.
Most developments respond to demand.
We shape it.
That is what it means to manufacture taste.
→ Projects
how we work
1. Convene the Strategic Table
We bring the developer, letting agent and branding team together at the outset.
Before plans are drawn, we define:
– Who the project is for
– What cultural and commercial space it will occupy
– How it should compete in its market
Positioning is agreed before form is fixed.
2. Translate Positioning into Architecture
We convert that shared strategy into spatial logic : layout hierarchy, circulation, material language and visual identity aligned to a defined demographic.
Architecture becomes the physical expression of the leasing and branding narrative.
Not a parallel exercise. Not an afterthought.
3. Align Delivery With Intent
As the project architect develops the scheme through planning and coordination, we remain involved at key milestones to ensure the original strategic clarity is preserved.
Positioning must survive value engineering.
Outcome
A development where branding, leasing strategy and architectural design reinforce one another — rather than compete.
Projects that are defined, differentiated and commercially legible.
→ Projects
why manufacturing taste?
Collective taste is not innate or immutable; it’s influenced, conditioned and manufactured.
Market trends are created, propagated, and amplified until they become internalised by society.
In tech, fashion, food, music, and lifestyle, designers and strategists work with opinion-makers in media, film, and branding to define the style of the age. They set the taste spectrum for people to adopt.
There is a clearly identifiable 'look, feel and sound' to the 1960s or the 1980s, or even the 2010s:
Think co-working. Think avocado on toast. Think skinny jeans. Think millennial pink. Think Scandinavian soapy timber.
Architecture is always there - but as a vessel, never an author. It follows rather than leads.
We believe it’s time to change that. Architecture should have agency in shaping taste, not just housing it. Our work realigns design with the larger cultural currents that drive markets.
Developers and agents shouldn’t just react to trends; they should define them.
That is where architecture becomes strategy. That is where design creates commercial advantage.