TARO is a design-led development practice focused on finding the potential in overlooked sites and buildings.

Founded by Skanda Lin, TARO brings seventeen years of experience designing and delivering buildings across the UK, Canada, China and the United States. Before establishing TARO, Skanda was Project Architect and External Packages Lead at Stanton Williams, most recently working on the Waynflete Quad for Magdalen College, Oxford. She previously spent eight years at Hawkins\Brown, working across residential, education, cultural and heritage projects, including student accommodation across three Goldsmiths campuses, the Grade II listed Waltham Forest Town Hall and the Grade II* Institute of Education.

Our approach sits at the intersection of design, planning and development. We look carefully at the character of a site, its history and its wider context to identify opportunities that others may overlook. We believe successful development begins with a clear idea: one that responds to its setting, works within the realities of planning and construction, and creates something distinctive and enduring.

TARO brings architectural thinking into the development process from the outset — from identifying and assessing land, through planning and design, to creating projects with a strong sense of place.

Alongside the development work, we take on a selective number of design and planning commissions — extensions, conversions, small residential schemes, and feasibility studies for owners and investors who want to understand what their property could become.

The two are the same skill pointed in different directions. Both begin with discovering what’s possible: the same question: what could this place become, and what will it take to get there?