A calmer rehoming centre, without spending money meant for the dogs

A new home for dogs, and the people who love them

Dogs Trust Cardiff is a new rehoming centre designed by Powell Dobson. The site is laid out as a series of pavilion buildings linked by a piazza, with public-facing areas for rehoming, training and events to the north, and private working buildings for training and rehabilitation kept quietly apart.

At the heart sits the main reception building, home to kennels, a veterinary wing, education zones and meeting spaces. The charity's signature yellow runs across feature walls, with the rest of the interior kept restrained in white and grey.

But behind the design choices was a constraint that shaped everything.

A charity budget, and a building full of barking

As a charity, the Dogs Trust has a clear priority for its funding: the dogs. The architecture had to feel contemporary and welcoming without ever looking like money had been spent for its own sake.

"Because the Dogs Trust is a charity, we were mindful that, while creating contemporary and exciting architecture and interiors, neither should appear as if money had been lavished on them. After all, the dogs should always be the priority in terms of funding allocation," said architect Oliver Henshall of Powell Dobson.

There was also a real acoustic challenge to solve. A building full of dogs is a loud one, and hard floors and exposed structures let barking echo and build. Keeping reverberation down matters for the welfare of anxious dogs and for the staff who spend all day among them.

The team also wanted to leave the services exposed rather than box them in, which ruled out a conventional full ceiling.