RISE Design Studio Blog: Modern Architecture & Design Insights (4)

Planning a Renovation or New Build in Barcelona? Here’s What to Know About Architect Fees

by Sean Hill on Jul 1, 2025

Sustainable Mediterranean-style home designed by English-speaking architects in Barcelona. Features natural materials, passive cooling, and biophilic elements set in a forested landscape.

If you’ve just moved to Barcelona or are planning your dream home or renovation here, one of your first questions will likely be:

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Topics: Sustainable Architect Architect Barcelona

Designing for Summer: Why Retrofit Is More Than a Winter Strategy

by Sean Hill on Jun 25, 2025

Exposed ceiling during retrofit by RISE Design Studio showing installed insulation and ventilation ductwork, designed to reduce overheating and improve indoor air quality as part of a sustainable, climate-resilient home upgrade.

☉ At RISE Design Studio, we believe good architecture doesn’t just shelter us - it sustains us. That means thinking beyond cold snaps and insulation R-values. As our summers get longer, hotter, and more unpredictable, the conversation around retrofit must evolve. It’s no longer just a …

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Topics: Sustainable Design Overheating

Rethinking Housing, Heritage and AI

by Sean Hill on Jun 19, 2025

Contemporary sustainable housing development in London designed by RISE Design Studio, featuring brick facades, landscaped frontages, and integrated green elements in an urban street setting.

Reflections on the future of sustainable architecture in the UK

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Topics: Future of Housing

Listening, Legacy, and Low Energy: Sean Ronnie Hill on the Green Building Matters Podcast

by Sean Hill on Jun 17, 2025

Sean Ronnie Hill, founder of RISE Design Studio, standing alongside Charlie Cicchetti, host of the Green Building Matters podcast, in front of a vertical timber backdrop—capturing their shared commitment to sustainable architecture, natural materials, and regenerative design principles.

What does it mean to build better? To design not just for beauty, but for performance, comfort, and future generations?

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Topics: Passivhaus Sustainable architecture Sustainable Design Podcast

£2bn for Housing: A Start, But We’re Still Falling Short

by Sean Hill on Jun 12, 2025

Modern red-brick affordable housing development with pitched roofs, black-framed windows, timber detailing, and landscaped communal garden, designed to enhance sustainability, natural light, and community living.

☉ RISE Design Studio | Architects + Low Energy Experts

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Topics: Sustainable Design Sustainable Affordable Homes

How to Design an Eco House That Works With Nature, Not Against It

by Sean Hill on Jun 12, 2025

Interior view of a sustainable, open-plan living space designed with Passivhaus principles, featuring natural timber finishes, high-performance glazing, a suspended fireplace, and seamless indoor-outdoor connection for energy-efficient, low-carbon living.

Building for Tomorrow Starts Today At RISE, we believe that the homes we create today shape the way we live tomorrow. The old model of building - extract, consume, discard - has had its day. In its place is something quieter, more considered, and far more urgent: a need to design home …

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Topics: Passivhaus Sustainable architecture enerphit low carbon low energy home Sustainable Architect

A Stage Between Worlds

by Sean Hill on Jun 11, 2025

Decorative Gaudí-style balconies on a colourful mosaic façade in Barcelona, showing how balconies blend art, passive cooling, natural shading and urban character, illustrating the balance between architectural beauty, sustainability and community connection in Mediterranean design.

In Barcelona, balconies are so stitched into the daily rhythm that their presence slips by almost unseen. But pause on a quiet street, tilt your head upwards, and there they are: little theatres hanging above the city, each one a bridge between the hush of private rooms and the hum of …

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Topics: Overheating Balconies