A leading Biophilic Architecture Studio

The common thread that runs through all our projects are a love of nature, a love of architecture and a love of life.

Covering all aspects of domestic, commercial and cultural projects from Paragraph 84e homes, to conversions of Listed Buildings and Barns, to House Extensions to community projects, Cura Design has a track record of delivering well-crafted and award winning projects on challenging sites, many in stunning landscapes and designated AONBs. We bring a foundation built from international experience in Oslo, Paris, New York and London with world leading architecture practices to all of our projects.

Cura Design believe in solutions born of the heart and implemented through the latest technologies. We endeavour to best serve the natural world not by retreating from it and minimizing our footprint, but by participating more fully as a new regenerative extension of ecology, protecting and enhancing biodiversity through integrating design and architectural technology with nature for our well-being.

In 2009 the office won a “High Commendation” for the Alan King Award and Plymouths Abercrombie Award in 2011 for Best Minor Development (New Street Residential Extension). In 2017 the office won Best Community Project and People of Plymouth Award (Stiltskin Children’s Theatre) as well as Best Community Project (Union Corner). In addition, the practice was winner of the RIBA sponsored Plymouth West End Ideas Competition in 2015. Cura Design currently has projects in London, Topsham, Buckinghamshire, Salcombe, Rock, Portreath, Newton Ferrers, Falmouth, Fowey and further afield in Taipei and Tokyo.

Cura Design have presented at: UK Construction Week 2025 Net Zero Panel at Londons Excel Centre, The Biophilic Design Conference held in the London Barbican Centre in 2024. Robert Bedner has presented on podcasts and other events including:  The Biophilic Hubs Happy Healthy Home Show 2025 “Current Projects”, Future Plymouth 2030 “Nature based Solutions and integrating Nature into our buildings 2021”; Homebuilding and Renovating Show London 2021 through 2024.

Recent projects that Cura Design have undertaken include:

A seaside house in Devon
From concept to completion on a very tight site and located within a conservation area. On the outside built with custom bricks and traditional detailing around the windows and doors,bee bricks and swift bricks, as well as fabric first construction. On the inside the project included a ground source heat pump, solar panels, and rainwater harvesting, MVHR heat recovery, bee bricks and swift bricks as well as fabric first construction. This property is also carbon negative, and rather than adding to the CO2 in our atmosphere, it’s actually removing 1.6 tonnes every year!

A home conversion in Devon
Our plans included extending the cottage and reconnecting the home and its human occupants to the landscape through a series of oak-framed elements, and a sunken lounge that looks out onto the pond and the landscape beyond.We’ll also be externally and internally thermally upgrading the house, and adding in a solar panel car port and walkway.

Extension in Buckinghamshire
This extension to a listed property utilises a beautiful new single flint wall that echoes the flint of the original home and a corten steel roof that will rust naturally. The oak frame structure extends the existing elements of the original house. All glass bay windows for reading and relaxing, surrounded by plants.

Small projects nationwide
Cura Design are working with Tini Living to assist the design and installation of pre-fabricated steel modular buildings in the UK. Its an obvious partnership – biophilic design principles expressed through a well-crafted alternative construction system that brings us closer to a more sustainable, more human, and more conscious future! The units are completely prefabricated inside and out and are a perfect solution for people wishing to build on the coast within sensitive coastal, conservation areas and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty as the units are craned into place and as such can built with planning permission (or in some cases under ‘the caravan act’).

Cura Design was founded by Robert Bedner in Devon in 2007.

Originally from Greenwich Connecticut, Robert has spent a life in architecture from working with Sverre Fehn in Norway and Renzo Piano in Paris and the artist Vito Acconci in New York City to Cura Designs ongoing residential and community projects in the UK and abroad. Robert will be speaking this year at the International Living Futures Biophilic Summit September 25 2025.

Robert is currently a member of the Southwest Design Review Panel (since 2014) and is currently a trustee for the Architects Benevolent Society. Complementing his design practice, for the last 12 years, Robert has cultivated practices with folk singing (The Great Sea Choir – upcoming EP release 12/25) and devotional singing and meditation as well as interests in spiritual practices based in Brazil. He currently lives in Devon with his wife and daughter, small dog and cat.

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