Established in 2012 by directors Justin Carrier and Steven Postmus, CaPA is a Perth studio based in West Leederville, offering integrated architecture and landscape design throughout Western Australia. The practice designs private houses, multi-residential buildings and community and civic projects in which buildings and gardens are conceived together, with a strong regard for neighbours, streetscape and climate. It also works as landscape designer alongside other architects.

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Office D.SHARP developed a marketing strategy for the practice, then known as Carrier and Postmus Architects, which became the brief for a new name, identity and website by the design studio Both. We continued to advise the practice throughout that work and in the period that followed.

The directors approached Office D.SHARP in the second half of 2023, with the completed plan delivered in December. Over more than a decade the practice had developed two strands of work: buildings designed together with their gardens, and landscape commissions carried out with other architects on schools, health facilities and apartment developments.

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Their aim was to present these strands as a single, integrated offer and to be considered more often for community and civic projects. They asked us to establish clear positioning for the practice and a marketing plan for the year ahead.

We began by holding workshops with the directors, then reviewed the practice's branding, website, imagery, social media and client-facing documents and compared them with architecture and landscape practices in Perth. We also interviewed two residential clients and an architect who regularly works with landscape designers.

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The practice's integrated offer stood out as a clear strength: few Perth practices offered architecture and landscape together, and none described its work in terms of longevity. The branding and website, however, predated much of the practice's recent work, and there was scope to strengthen its written messaging and the consistency of its imagery. Because the website arranged projects in separate categories for architecture and landscape, it also presented the two disciplines apart, rather than conveying the integration that most distinguished the practice.

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The people we interviewed saw landscape as essential to the success of their projects, and each spoke in some way about the respect the practice had shown for their brief, their neighbours and the site.

Drawing on this research, we developed positioning built around three concepts. Integrated describes architecture and landscape considered as a whole. Enduring describes long-term thinking, robust construction and buildings intended to leave a positive legacy. Respectful describes the practice's regard for neighbours and streetscape, for biodiversity and climate, and for its clients and collaborators.

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Alongside the positioning, we set three measurable objectives for the year ahead: increasing awareness of the practice in the Western Australian architecture and landscape market, growing consideration for civic projects, and strengthening recognition of its architecture alongside its landscapes.

Our first recommendation in the marketing plan was a new identity, website and suite of client documents, with a closely curated portfolio, since most of the other activity depended on them being in place.

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We also made recommendations for the photography of future built work, visualisation and copywriting, and outlined a programme of outreach to architects and civic clients, to begin once the new identity had launched.

The practice engaged Both in February 2024, and we briefed the designers on the strategy. The central question was how one website could present an integrated practice while allowing landscape commissions to stand in their own right and credit the architects involved. Both's concept, presented in May, answered this with a single body of work that can be filtered by discipline and sector, with landscape-only projects titled accordingly.

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The name was shortened to CaPA, with a new logo, a palette of deep green, light ochre, sky blue and warm white, and a new address at capa.studio. Alongside a website that introduced a studio statement, pages for the team, awards and press, and short films of completed projects, Both produced document and newsletter templates in the same identity.

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We recommended launching with the six strongest projects and adding others over time, and we briefed and directed writer Rebecca Gross, who prepared the studio statement, project texts and a capability statement in line with the positioning. The identity and website launched in late 2024.

Since the launch, the practice has sent regular newsletters and added to its portfolio as projects have been completed. Photographer Leo Showell has documented Birdwood Residence, a house and garden in Dalkeith, together with landscapes for two schools and a regional health service, and the website now holds seventeen projects.

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CaPA is a practice whose buildings and gardens are conceived as one, with a long view of how they will serve their owners and their neighbourhoods. We are proud to have helped it present that work under one name, with its positioning, identity, writing and photography all drawn from the same strategy.

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Brand identity and website by Both. Images by Leo Showell.