HAP Architects began life in High Wycombe 1984 and has grown organically since then, building upon what would seem to be a common-sense policy of understanding the brief and delivering the product of design.
The practice combines its artistic flair with practical experience and today works predominantly on residential developments for individuals, developers and social providers. Formed by Chris Harvey, the practice has established an excellent reputation for providing dynamic, innovative and friendly services to both commercial and private clients.
It is Chris’ belief that they should provide a personal, high quality service to their clients and the success of this belief is reflected in the fact that many of its commissions come from repeat business and recommendations from current or previous clients.
“How do you work?” we asked Chris, “We tackle all aspects of a project whether a simple conversion project or the development of a Greenfield site and much of our work revolves around the regeneration of distressed sites or tired buildings. We have just completed a residential scheme of 86 units in a multi-storey building built to Code 3 for Linden Homes. We also work regularly for Taylor Wimpey and, in fact, we are now working on the second phase of a development at Crystal Palace for 88 units, the first phase of which comprised 129 flats. We are also looking at the first phase of a much bigger development for 390 homes”.
If one looks at the range of sectors in which HAP have been involved over the last 27 years, there are not many end uses that one can think of where HAP has not been involved! If one takes say the four main areas of private residential, developer residential, swimming pools and leisure and commercial, then one finds a plethora of interesting projects. On the residential front, these have ranged from a new family home in Walters Ash that the developer liked so much that he refused to sell it and is now living in it, a 6-bedroom new build house in Hazlemere, a timber barn conversion and a new thatched cottage. At the other end of the scale, HAP has been involved in a scheme for 156 apartments in Slough acquired with Outline Planning Permission which they redesigned to upgrade it to 189 apartments. From inception to completion and sale this project took only 18 months.
Looking to the future, Chris says, “We see ourselves growing both in size and in stature, particularly in the north London area but we also work anywhere that the client requires. We have recently moved to a new 5,200 square foot headquarters building in High Wycombe – this is a newly refurbished building at the Old Registry on Amersham Hill. We have completely transformed the interior from a rather tired state into a modern open plan office space. We have also taken on new design and technical staff – we see our investment in them as vitally important since we know that once we have designed a project, we can build it successfully without having to redesign parts of it, thereby simplifying the process for ourselves and our clients.”
For further information please telephone 01494 450429 or visit http://www.hap-hiwyc.co.uk
