When I first arrived at Orms in 2024, the practice was part-way through a rebrand, working with BOB Design and Emma Keyte at Free Projects to evolve the Ultrapractical book into a website. I love this kind of project, where we take time to reflect on the value of our business and on how we can make that really clear to clients, collaborators and future employees.
We soon decided that one way of doing that would be to make a film, and so we commissioned filmmaker Steph Beeston to work with us. In early 2026, I sat down with Steph to reflect on the making of the film, and how it has helped us communicate both our values and our architecture. This is our conversation.
Miranda:
I think we knew from the beginning that film would be the best medium for articulating the qualities of the projects we were working on. Traditionally, architecture practices have relied on stills photography but that’s starting to change. We just felt that film would be a much more effective way of showing the everyday use of a building, that it could immediately take you there. There’s something so amazing about film, about watching people using a space. You become more excited about their experience and you’re with them in a way.
There are some excellent filmmakers out there, but there’s a certain style of architectural filmmaking which is almost an extension of the still, where it’s all about the beauty of the architecture. We wanted our film to be more about the people that were using the space, so we knew we had to look for someone from outside the architectural profession who had more experience in documentary filmmaking.
Steph:
Yes, when I came across the brief I could see that you had a really clear vision of what you were looking for – and what you wanted to steer away from. As a filmmaker, you’re always looking to understand that final vision, but it can be quite difficult for clients to be clear about it from the beginning.
That vision immediately drew me to the brief and the project, because my background is documentary. Architecture and the built environment are a new area for me, but I could see how much you wanted to focus on the experience of the spaces as opposed to the buildings themselves – and to explore the symbiotic relationship between the two. You gave some great references too, and they were a really nice jumping off point for me. I started to do my own research into film and architecture so I could understand more about the landscape we were working in.
My background in anthropology also helped; I’ve always been interested in human stories, and how the spaces that we live in inform these. Buildings are a container for all of our lives to unfold in. So the brief felt like a really exciting opportunity.
Articulating look and feel
Miranda:
I think the thing that really stood out to us were the visual references you gave us back in response to our brief. It was so nice because it showed that you really understood what we wanted.
Steph:
Yes, having those visual references on both sides is so important because a lot of the time you know how you want the audience to feel but you don’t necessarily know how to articulate that in the brief. That’s something that both sides can latch on to and develop, they’re a reference point we can build onto.
Miranda:
The other thing we really loved was the sound reference you gave – there was one that had the sounds of the city. We realised that you could watch something that was just about sound, and that that could be really beautiful.
Steph:
Yes, it’s very normal to hear music over the top of these kinds of films. It’s easy to understand why: it provides a rhythm and creates movement. But a lot of the time if you do that you’re sacrificing how it feels just to be in the space. To say those sounds are mundane seems negative, but I do think it’s important to let the viewer sit in a space and for them to not feel like they’re being heavily directed or led by the soundtrack.
Often as a filmmaker you’re making decisions about how much information to give the audience, how much emotion to lean into. But a lot of the time, if you just pull back on that a little bit and allow the audience to put their own perspective on things it can produce something way more meaningful. I think it makes the film more memorable and resonant.
A film in a circle
Miranda:
We soon came to the conclusion that to kick off we’d need a practice film that talked about the everyday life of the office – how we work, what our processes are and what it’s like to be here. And then we needed a second, project-based film for the landing page of the website. The graphic design was led by a very strong idea, so the film would need to be cropped into a circle reflecting the O of Orms.
Steph:
That was really great for me because traditionally filmmakers work on the assumption that everything’s going to be in landscape. You also tend to be working with the rule of thirds, dividing the screen up into nine rectangles. So, knowing that the film was going to be viewed through a circle, I had to throw the rulebook out and focus more on symmetry, and that was something really fun for me.
Miranda:
We envisaged that the practice film would be of most interest to people who were thinking of joining the business, allowing them to get a flavour of the culture. For the project film, the main audience was our clients. We wanted to demonstrate the quality of our design and the trusting relationships we build, but also create something that would be evocative for future clients and collaborators.
The practice film acts as an open window, so when you do come into our office you already feel familiar with it. The project film is similar in that it has an observational quality. It starts with a tractor moving across the cricket pitch at Uppingham School. It’s not obvious, but it’s really delightful. The film came out of Steph just observing.
Steph:
That’s something I felt would be really important in this. I’m almost always doing a few different roles on a shoot – and when you’re in that zone it’s easy to forget the importance of taking a step out and just observe what’s going on in front of you.
That’s why the opportunity to do a recce at the London locations was great. We went to each of the spaces and not only wandered around but also sat there for a while, watching, to understand how people were using the space. That was so helpful for me, not only in planning where the camera would need to be, but in understanding what the space felt like without a camera there. Because as soon as you start filming, places do change. A camera alters how people interact and how they move through the space.
Evolving Ultrapractical
Miranda:
On the briefing, it might be easier to say what we didn’t want. We didn’t want lots of empty spaces, music, and a man’s voice talking. So then we needed to think about how we could give the film the same care as there’d been right the way through the rebrand process.
That’s what was lovely about the brand; it evolved out of Ultrapractical. What’s great about the book is that there are no images of Orms projects inside it. Instead it’s about stories, ideas and processes, and it’s designed specifically so that anyone can pick it up and read it. It doesn’t feel like a lobbying piece, it’s more an insight into the things that matter to the practice and the team.
The design of the website and the tone of the language reflect this same storytelling about the end users and the practicalities of how the architecture serves them. So it was very clear to us that the film also had to be an observational piece about everyday life.
I would go home from meetings at the office and the conversation would continue with my husband Ben, who’s a filmmaker. I asked him to show me the briefs that he received from various clients, and to explain how to get the best out of a director. And he told us how important it was to be clear, not just with our vision, but with the practicalities of how we wanted to be filmed.
So, for example, we set out in our brief what type of camera should be used, the kind of equipment and the number of edits, the timeframe we were working to and what our budget was. This way the filmmakers who responded could resource their time in the correct way.
Steph:
All of that definitely came across. I thought that you must be used to commissioning films because you seemed to know exactly what you wanted, and what information I would need. It’s quite rare to see a brief that answers so many of my questions, and that’s really helpful because it helps me move on very quickly from the ‘what’ of a film to the ‘why’.
There are always things that we can capture on film, but it’s only when we get to the ‘why’ that we have a guiding principle. It’s the connective tissue that works through everything, not just the film but the rebrand as a whole piece. And I think that’s why the Orms brand feels so cohesive, because even though everyone worked individually within their own speciality, the whole thing makes sense together.
If a client is able to communicate why they actually want to make a film, and what success looks like, it helps so much. It means that the filmmaker has a really clear idea of the bigger picture rather than just the immediate context.
Film as post-occupancy evaluation
Miranda:
The process of developing our new brand began during Covid, before I joined the practice. The directors took the opportunity to reflect on the past and future of the company, and worked with Sven Mündner and Rory Olcayto at Beispiel to develop a set of pillars or key values that would set our vision going forward. That was cemented in the Ultrapractical book, which was really our fundamental starting point.
So we then had to bring people in to work with us on the website, which is really our external shopfront, and our main moment to get our values across cohesively. BOB Design did a brilliant job of that. I think, though, that we could have potentially worked with a filmmaker earlier in the process, because we found so much of worth in discovering things through film and observing the places we make.
In film you’re reacting to a moment and the human interaction on that day. You get so much from the process itself. When we went to Uppingham School to film there I was able to have conversations with the teachers that we would never normally have. I could ask how the project was working for them and what they’d maybe do differently. So it was really useful post-occupancy evaluation, and that’s rare to get.
The act of filmmaking has been a great process for us, it’s absolutely not just about the end result. And we’ve been reflecting on that. Some of our projects are on site at the moment and it’d be really nice to start filming them and see what we can learn from observing that process.
If a photographer turns up, takes a few photos and then leaves it’s a bit different. But the act of filmmaking involves having to make people feel comfortable around you. You were so good at disappearing, letting people just get on with their day. I suppose that’s probably because of all the documentary work you’ve done, but they seemed to forget that you were there.
Steph:
That’s so interesting. Of course as a filmmaker there’s a piece of content that you’re making, but then there’s all the other stuff that goes on around it, the stuff that the camera enables. It can work both ways, but sometimes you see in interviews that people feel safer saying things in front of the camera. That feels counterintuitive, but it’s because it creates a kind of comfort barrier that enables people to say things they wouldn’t be able to directly to another person. The camera can bring things out of you.
It’s quite meta but the idea of exploring the actual process of making a film is really interesting. What does it bring up for people, and how does it make people reflect differently on the space that you’ve created as architects?
Miranda:
There’s one moment when we were filming at Uppingham that really stands out. Colin McColl, who led the project there for Orms, tells a story of when the project was completed and he watched some of the students doing a physics experiment, making parachutes and watching them fall through atrium space. He was really moved by it because he had never expected the space to be used in quite that way. When I told one of the teachers about this on the day we filmed there, they turned around and said ‘let’s do it’. Instead of doing the planned class, the kids all made parachutes and we filmed them. They really enjoyed it and so did the teacher; it was a really nice day.
Capturing the life of the city
Steph:
At somewhere like the Outernet, we had less control – it’s a public space so a lot less predictable. Whereas at Uppingham we knew what we might expect to see, at the Outernet we just had to exist in the space and allow the camera to capture what happened in front of it. I was really interested in seeing how people would move in and out of the frame.
Miranda:
There’s one person you captured walking across and he looked really startled by something. He’s not looking at the camera; it’s something on the screens and he just stops in his tracks, evaluating whether he likes it or not, and then he carries on. It’s so lovely to see the building doing something like that, stopping a person on their busy commute.
Steph:
Especially with the Outernet because it’s so visually arresting and it’s in the thick of the city. So you’re getting people that don’t realise what it is, and trying to capture those moments. But it also acts as a great backdrop. You can see people having conservations while they’re looking at the screens. So even though it was a lot less controlled there was lots of opportunity to capture the life of the city.
Probably the most challenging place we filmed at was 180 Strand, which is a commercial building. We obviously didn’t have the public moving through, but there were people going about their everyday jobs, so we had to be respectful. I thought a lot about what the most appropriate way to approach it was, and how we needed to prepare people.
Miranda:
That constraint is quite nice though because the building becomes a bigger part of the story. It’s about how the architecture elevates less exciting activities, like going to work each day. I feel that here [at 160 Old Street] when I get off the tube, and the light’s streaming in and there’s a big view and I feel like I’m re-set. Buildings have a huge impact on your mental health so it’s important to capture the way they lift people.
Steph:
It connects back to that mundanity we talked about too. Just watching someone make a cup of tea is boring in many ways, but actually if it’s filmed with the right intent, it can be a really beautiful moment for someone on the other side of the screen to connect. Sometimes that everyday stuff can be just as powerful as big, public spaces like the Outernet.
Building worlds: filming the forever generous
Steph:
Moving forward, it’d be nice to explore how we can use film to capture more of the design process. That could be really exciting.
Miranda:
Absolutely. On some of our current projects – like 75 London Wall – we’ve been having discussions around how we can best tell the story of how we’re reusing an existing building. There’s an existing language around the value of carbon retention, but it would be really nice to use film to communicate that more clearly, to show how we’re meticulously caring for the fabric of the building so it can have a longer life.
Steph:
What’s nice about that is that it speaks to a much wider audience about what you’re doing, even those who don’t know anything about architecture. It’s quite a mysterious discipline in some ways. People don’t really know what it involves unless they’re in it, so being able to see those moments is really valuable beyond the profession.
But it’s also relevant to the people you collaborate with. You’re able to share with them more about your purpose and make it clear that the work they’re doing stands for something.
Miranda:
I think the reason the films are so successful is that they’re fully aligned with our vision. And they just celebrate the way that people use the space. In the terminology of our Ultrapractical book, it’s about elevating the everyday. You address the practicalities and then you create some wonder! Emma [Keyte] coined a very nice expression during the rebrand about Orms’ work being forever generous. I think about that phrase a lot. It’s lovely because the privilege of an architect is in being able to enable those moments of wonder that give back over the long term. So at Uppingham, for example, it’s being able to make the kind of generous space for sciences that has enabled more girls than ever to be studying chemistry at the school. And we might never have known about that impact had we not gone back to film there.
Steph:
Film has an ability to extract those abstract qualities of a place. Of course, all kinds of visual mediums do that in their own way, but film is particularly good at building worlds and creating a connection with the audience.
It goes back to how you want the audience to feel. I remember reading about that idea of being forever generous on the first page of your brief. And it stuck in my head because I thought it was such an interesting way of talking about space. It became the guiding principle as we moved through pre-production and into the shoot.
It’s really hard to pinpoint how explicitly an idea like that gets communicated, but if those guiding principles are there to start with, they will become embedded in the film in some way. The idea was there and we brought it to life. The work that you did upfront paid dividends.
So if I had any advice for people who might be looking to commission this sort of work, it would be to make time for that kind of internal thinking around purpose at the very beginning of the process – and involve the filmmaker early on too. That’s the way that you build worlds.
