A practice and a laboratory — designing buildings and the instruments that produce them.
WUA Studio is a London-based architecture practice and research laboratory. We were founded in 2021 to ask, in practice, what an architecture firm should be in the age of intelligence.
WUA Studio, Design District, North Greenwich, London.
The studio at Design District, North Greenwich.
Buildings that respond. Across scales, typologies, and continents.
From masterplanning through architecture, hospitality, residential, and cultural design — concept to delivery.
Tools we build, not just buy. Through WUA_LAB.
SLAM scanning, 3D Gaussian Splatting, AI workflows, and the Lintel platform for spatial intelligence.
Geography, culture, and commerce. We hold all three at once.
Context is the working material of design, not its background. Seven languages, deep regional fluency.
From desert hotels to urban regeneration, from public art to brand spaces — the range itself is the argument.
Romania — International competition shortlist — 2025
Reimagining a Black Sea waterfront as a flood-adaptive civic district — landscape, public space, and commerce in one strategy.
UAE — Prototype design — 2025
A reinterpretation of Emirati domestic typologies — wind tower, screen, courtyard — with passive performance and modular living.
Norwich, UK — University of East Anglia — Concept
Stepped, landscape-led student accommodation set within the UEA campus — terraces planted with native species, social roof gardens, generous communal balconies, and a low-carbon material strategy in dialogue with Lasdun's ziggurats.
Foshan, China — Completed — 2024
A site-specific installation exploring water, vessel, and Cantonese delta culture through contemporary spatial language.
London, UK — with Potlatch
A fast-paced, high-exposure retail environment for a technology brand — connecting product, space, and audience.
Bermondsey, London — Near Tower Bridge — In design
A discreet, light-led clinical interior — material restraint, soft acoustic spatial sequencing, and considered routing for both patient comfort and clinical workflow.
WUA_Lab collaborates with universities, local councils, and energy partners on applied research that lowers carbon and improves how buildings are run — from BEMS Lite, our open building-energy management system co-developed with industry, to the Lintel platform for spatial intelligence. Social impact is part of how we work, not a side note.
WUA_LAB is the research and development practice of WUA Studio. We build SLAM scanning, 3DGS reconstruction, AI workflows, and the Lintel platform — currently piloting at Knight Dragon's Design District, North Greenwich.
Active partnerships: University of Greenwich Knowledge Exchange Centre (MOU), Royal Borough of Greenwich, Knight Dragon at Design District, and energy-sector collaborators on BEMS Lite. Cross-industry work spans furniture algorithms, digital archives for galleries and art festivals, virtual touring, and low-carbon retrofit research.
Four service lines that translate spatial intelligence into deliverable work — for our clients and for the wider industry.
Before founding WUA, founder Shaobo Wu contributed as a project director & senior architect to landmark international projects, during prior tenure at the London offices below.
Red Sea Project
Hospitality masterplan, KSA · prior tenure
British Museum White Wing
Cultural & civic, London · prior tenure
Dubai Expo 2020 Masterplan
Civic & public realm, UAE · prior tenure
Senior team experience spans KSA, Kuwait, UAE, UK, China, and Europe.
Shawn helped establish Sordo Madaleno's London team and led the office's early-phase major Red Sea projects in Saudi Arabia, after years at Foster + Partners and HOK on large-scale cultural and entertainment projects.
Educated at Newcastle, Greenwich, and The Bartlett (UCL). Mentor at the University of Greenwich.
WUA Studio, 105 B4, Design District
3 Barton Yard, London SE10 0BN, UK
Also operating in Riyadh (BD liaison · KSA) and Shanghai (collaborative studio with JAMA · China).
