Here at OSO, we are not your average timber frame design business. Why do we dare claim this?

Approx. 3 min read

OSO was born from a craving to go back to basics in an industry filled with detachment from nature and people. We have the highest respect and love for well-made things, using locally grown materials whenever possible and ensuring they are the best fit for each job. We are fiercely passionate about bringing your project to life in the most sustainable and lasting way, bridging the gap between engineers, architects, builders, and YOU, the client.

1. Collaboration and dialogue are at the heart of our approach.

We break down complex architectural concepts and are versatile, inclusive, and kind: every client for us is a different individual who has specific needs and ambitions. We pride ourselves on having successfully delivered many unique visions to life and have created special companionships with our clients and tradesmen along our journey so far. 

After nearly a decade within the timber frame industry, our founder Jordan Paton Ross created OSO partly as a reaction to the frustrations seen in the trade. Whether it’s a ‘one size fits all´ attitude or dealing with the unnecessarily complicated jargon that creates unhelpful divisions between the parties concerned. We believe that being involved in a project as early as possible and being informed and on board with the prerequisites of the job can make all the difference, ensuring everyone is on the same page. We advocate for the client’s needs, facilitating their desired level of participation, to increase their awareness of the project and their decision-making in regards to reasoning and costs.

Because of our philosophy of wanting to do things differently, we primarily have a personal focus, not making it about ourselves but about you, our client. We are not just a company designing and working with timber, but a movement that is building a network of trustworthy and like-minded people.

2. We take sustainability very seriously.

Honour the materials, honour nature. The timber we use for our building designs has an origin story we do not want to simply glance over or ignore. Woodlands - where our timber comes from - are nature’s cathedrals, and we take that essence and incorporate it into our clients’ projects. Every piece of timber is special and therefore excels at specific functions. We bring this attention to detail and analysis into the creation of what is the most natural transformation of these materials into a built environment. 

We realise where the industry's average and standard practices are, and actively make decisions to move away from harmful and wasteful methods. Timber in its natural state has a wealth of raw properties and we want to actively work with them and hone them instead of adding excessive chemicals, which generally results in a naturally renewable resource becoming a landfill product overnight. Over-treating timber and forcing it to coexist with incompatible materials limits its unrefined lifespan, can be toxic, and is simply not efficient nor sustainable.

We are a part of the Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB), and proactively keep up-to-date with the industry’s best practices regarding both sustainability news and constant professional development.

3. Working and building with timber is our passion.

We build structures with a philosophy of making nature work for our client´s projects. Our greatest ambition is to create robust and timeless designs by developing a perfect marriage between traditional exposed framing styles and more contemporary engineered solutions. This harmony of past and future is our chosen way forward to adapt to our clients’ preferences, catering to both the purist and traditional approaches but also using technology and our cutting-edge design tools and software for a state-of-the-art finish.

The way we work, mostly from our virtual design space, strives to minimise the waste of resources and client’s time. We aspire to reduce the amounts of decision turns and back-and-forths which are often the most disheartening side of project management, and that eventually can be very costly. We are mindful virtual builders, who take only the necessary amount of the best possible materials and push for transparency and awareness of their provenance and purpose.

Creating new builds need not compromise on these timeless qualities. We can and will create structures and buildings that unite the durability and perenniality of old and historical constructions, and that can exercise that same accuracy, care, and storytelling for generations to come.

Written by Isabel Abril in conversation with Jordan Ross