Flimsy Works is a small architecture practice using design and construction to connect communities to the natural environment. The practice was set up by Amy Grounsell, Ceri Hedderwick Turner and Kaye Song, who all graduated from BA Architecture in the Department in 2017/18, and Joe Tompkins who graduated from MEng Engineering in 2019.
Flimsy Works is an architecture practice using design and construction to connect communities to the natural environment. They write:
'Our projects make the most of reclaimed or readily-available materials, arranging these playfully to make structures that touch the earth lightly and spaces that tell stories about shifting landscapes. We build crudely, but carefully and with character.
Since our inception we have worked on a range of design and build projects with landscape-led organisations such as the Knepp Wildland Foundation, The Wildlife Trust, and youngwilders, as well as arts organisations such as the Design Museum, Cement Fields and STORE Projects.'
In 2025, Flimsy Works were selected for inclusion in New Architects 5, a definitive index compiled by the Architecture Foundation of the UK's best new architects, due to be published in July 2026.
Flimsy Works members are:
Ceri Hedderwick Turner: Jesus College 2014-2017
Ceri studied architecture at the University of Cambridge and Central Saint Martins and was featured in Blueprint Magazine’s ‘Ones to Watch 2017’. He has since gained a breadth of experience across design and making disciplines.
Professionally he has overseen the renovation of a Grade II listed water tower whilst working for Parti, contributed to circular biobased construction research at Material Cultures, worked in the exhibition design team at the V&A, exhibited furniture at Wirksworth Festival and designed for a number of short films and private exhibitions. He is also a member of the Landscape Research Group with an interest in the future of land use and stewardship in rural Britain.
Amy Grounsell: Queens College 2015-2018
Amy is an architect and educator. She studied at the University of Cambridge, KU Leuven, and London Metropolitan University. Her teaching and research focus on ways of making and remaking, and on architecture as a negotiation with the natural world. She currently teaches on the MA/PGDip in Conservation and Reuse at the Architectural Association, alongside Rod Heyes and Amandine Kastler. The programme is driven by an urgent need to cultivate the careful use and reuse of materials and spaces, viewed through the lens of climate change. Previously, she taught at London Metropolitan University and Kingston University.
Recent collaborations include design leadership on a flood wall restoration at Grays Riverside in Essex with Tonkin Liu, and developing construction design for Hop Cottage at AOMD, nominated for the Architects’ Journal Small Projects Award 2025. Her Master’s thesis Resilient Landscapes won the Signy Svalastoga Prize for Landscape in 2021 and was featured in Dezeen. She also co-founded and continues to co-directs the music and arts festival The Three Wheel Drive.
Kaye Song: Magdelene College 2015-2018
Kaye studied architecture at the University of Cambridge and the Bartlett School of Architecture, was nominated for the RIBA Bronze Medal and awarded the RIBA Eastern Region Prize. In 2025, she was awarded the Arts Foundation Future Award in Design as one of the most promising creatives in the UK, and awarded the Experimental Fellowship at Bauhaus Earth for researching Light Earth as an ornamental and low-carbon construction method using waste fibres and earth.
She also became a Partner of Turner Prize-winning collective Assemble, where she worked on the rebuilding of riverside artist studios into live-work creative spaces, a house on stilts in a saltmarsh, a kinked longhouse within a wilding project, as well as the curation of the Architecture Rooms at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. In parallel, she develops a body of artistic and photographic work, designing installations and making images that explore landscape and infrastructure.
Joe Tompkins: Trinity Hall College 2015-2019
Joe is a structural engineer and designer who studied at the University of Cambridge. He has worked in leading engineering practices in the UK and New Zealand, focusing on complex timber structures, sensitive historic retrofit and large-scale public sculpture. While at Structure Workshop, he worked on the Stirling Prize-shortlisted Wraxall Yard, the new pavilion at Dulwich Picture Gallery, and multiple public sculptures around the UK.
He has presented research at the World Conference of Timber Engineering, and taught structural engineering to architecture students at London Metropolitan University and Oxford Brookes University. He believes in the value of working hands-on with materials as a way to develop design skills, having designed and built multiple projects for private clients, and has had model-making work exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
Of their time in Cambridge they write:
'We found our time in Cambridge challenging and inspiring with the unique combination of history, theory and quality design tutelage foundational in shaping our architectural interests and approach. Working in small collaborative studio and having the opportunity to work closely with structural engineering students was particularly enjoyable. Being heavily involved in the production of the end-of-year shows was a great starting point to our hands-on approach to designing and making.'