A practice built
around three principles.
A director designs
the building.
[Directors to rewrite naturally. Not a director's name on the title block — a director, at the desk, on the model, on site. Every drawing produced or reviewed by a director.]
[Continuation paragraph — the practical mechanics of how this actually works on a project. What it means for design quality, for risk, for the client experience.]
[Continuation — what we DON'T have: senior-engineer layer running jobs, a junior front-line, BDM gatekeepers, triage.]
We say no
to the wrong jobs.
[Directors to rewrite naturally. Capacity is finite. The reason the director-led model works is because we don't take on more than three directors can deliver.]
[Continuation — the trade-off this implies. Where we say yes (sectors / types of project / types of client), where we say no.]
We push the tools
forward.
Buildings are a slow industry. We're not. Three directors and a long-standing associate network are only able to carry the current workload because we treat technology as a discipline — not a marketing line.
In practice that means: cloud-federated Revit MEP models reviewed live across the studio and the associate network; automated clash detection and energy modelling that frees director time for the design decisions only a director can make; AI-driven diagnostics specified into the BMS layer of our maintenance frameworks, so building performance is measured rather than estimated.
We embrace AI where it earns its place. We don't where it doesn't. The line is whether the technology improves the engineering — or just the marketing of it.
A close circle of
long-standing
sub-consultants.
[Directors to rewrite naturally. When a project needs more hands on the model, we don't post a job ad — we phone people we've worked with for ten years or more.]
[Continuation — the network is mostly ex-colleagues. All chartered. Decade-plus working relationships. The chemistry is already there. The handover overhead is near zero. The work that comes back out reads as if it never left the studio.]
[Continuation — this is the mechanism that lets a three-director studio carry the current workload without compromising the director-led promise. Resource scales; the principle doesn't.]
Fully remote.
By design.
Prana has operated remotely since 2019. The whole studio runs on coordinated cloud infrastructure — Revit Cloud Worksharing, federated MEP models reviewed jointly across the studio and associate network.
[Directors to rewrite naturally. Why remote works for us — directors live where they live, model is centralised, client meetings happen on Teams or on site rather than at a head office that nobody actually visits anymore.]
[Continuation — the operational cost saving funds the director-led model. We pass the saving to clients through better people on their projects, not a cheaper hourly rate.]