ABOUT
One studio. One team. From first sketch to finished building.
Set Square Studio is a design-and-build contractor working across the South and South West of England. We take on the whole journey — feasibility, design, planning permission, and construction — so our clients brief one team and hold one team accountable.
- Based
- Bournemouth (BH3)
- Area
- South & South West
- Experience
- 15+ years
- Model
- Design · Planning · Build
Known for the schemes other people find too complicated.
Heritage and listed buildings, change of use, ecology and licensing. From homeowners’ extensions to Grade I townscapes and specialist care, the method is the same — draw it true, plan it properly, build it once.
Tom Hollington
Tom has spent 15+ years as an architectural designer working across the South Coast, with a background rooted in the licensed and hospitality trade. Before Set Square he was with Hollington Architect & Design Team Ltd — a practice established in 1988 specialising in pub and licensed-industry design — where he worked for operators including Greene King, Mitchells & Butlers, Enterprise Inns, Brains, Marston’s and Whitbread, and was retained by Day Lewis Plc as their architect for pharmacy developments. He led that firm’s diversification into healthcare and retirement living — which is exactly why Set Square is as comfortable with a care home or a bar-restaurant as with a house extension.
Tom runs every project personally — the design, the planning strategy, the programme, the budget and the build. His working relationships with local planning departments and councils are what get schemes moving quickly. You deal with the person accountable for the result, not an account manager.
An open, approachable design process — constant design reviews and real client involvement.
- Feasibility & concept design
- Planning applications & appeals
- Listed building consent & heritage impact assessments
- Sustainability & eco-design compliance
- Ecology — bat surveys, EPS licensing, BNG
- Specialist care & dementia-friendly design
- Fire engineering strategy
- Licensing — premises, late-night, variations
- Commercial kitchen extraction & ventilation
- Technical design — architecture, M&E, structural
- Principal contractor & construction management
- Heritage restoration & specialist repair
Buildings at risk don’t need demolition. They need a plan.
A derelict landmark, a tired period home, a redundant barn — what saves them is a viable plan and someone to carry it through. That’s the work.
SOME OF WHO WE’VE WORKED WITH
Work with the person, not the pipeline.
One conversation with Tom will tell you more than a week of quotes.