Hugh Cullum Architects was founded in 1999 and has developed into a coherent team with broad collective expertise.
The practice specialises in building in sensitive contexts and has a reputation for considered and innovative design. Our approach to each project is unique and depends on a thorough analysis of a building’s setting in relation to the brief.
Successful building should be a partnership between client, architects, and builder. In this respect, we believe that our skills as practitioners, thinkers, and teachers give us a unique strength to make the most of this joint opportunity.
“The work shows a remarkable architectural intelligence that renders materials emotionally communicative….
it is quirky, charming, individual, eclectic, kinetic, surprising, Picturesque, characterful, subtle, and humanising… demonstrating an enduring concern to treat each place on its own merit.”
Charles Rattray – architectural critic and journalist
Hugh Cullum Architects Team Structure:
HCA is managed jointly by Hugh Cullum and William Adams, both fully qualified ARB architects of great experience.
Will is also a registered architect in Ireland and, with Giles Woodcock, he leads the practice’s operations in the both the Republic and in Northern Ireland.
Hugh Cullum PhD (Cantab) RIBA SCA ARB
Hugh trained at Cambridge and went on to do a Ph.D. in architectural history before setting up Cullum and Nightingale in 1986. In 1998 Hugh was awarded a fellowship at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal to write a book on Northern Italian Baroque architecture. On his return to England he set up Hugh Cullum Architects. He has continued to be involved in teaching and research as well as acting as architectural advisor or senior assessor to a number of RIBA-led competitions and is currently a juror for the RIBA UK awards. He is co-chair of the Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee, a member of the Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association and has been elected a Brother of the Art Workers Guild. In 2013 he was added to the RIBA register of Specialist Conservation Architects.
William Adams MArch MSt (Cantab) RIBA RIAI ARB
William gained his Masters degree at the University of Dundee, specialising in urban theory, and subsequently completed his architectural training in London. He has worked in public and private sector practices in Dublin, New York and the Netherlands, most recently focusing on high-end residential projects in Central London where he worked at award-winning practices Barbara Weiss Architects and latterly Rodić Davidson Architects, where he was an associate. William has particular experience working with listed buildings and has led numerous projects in complex regulatory settings, including several of London’s Great Estates. He has been a member of the Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee since 2015, and recently gained a Masters in Building History at the University of Cambridge.
Giles Woodcock DipArch
Giles joined Hugh Cullum Architects in 2014. His rare talent for inventive and sensitive design reinforces the established strengths of the practice. He has varied experience on a range of commercial and residential projects with an emphasis on sensitive interventions to historic and listed buildings. He trained at Glasgow’s Mackintosh School of Architecture and his research interests include the planning, design and construction of contemporary buildings in the context of existing or historic fabric. He divides his time between Dublin, where he works on HCA projects in the Republic and in Northern Ireland, and London, where his role is to support design quality.
Tobias Schneider Dipl Ing Architect ARB
Tobias studied at the TU in Munich and the TU Delft before moving to the UK, where he has gained 12 years’ experience of working on a wide range of commercial and residential projects, with a particular emphasis on listed buildings. He joined the practice in 2018 and specialises in refurbishments of complex historic buildings.
Christine de Beer MArch
Christine joined Hugh Cullum Architects in July 2019. She previously worked primarily on heritage projects in South Africa, both on graded buildings and new builds within conservation areas, which is where her interest in working with sensitive sites developed. Prior to this she also gained experience working on medium scale mixed use buildings, residential projects and schools.
Christine graduated from the University of Cape Town. Her master’s dissertation recognised the residual space created by highways, as an opportunity to stitch together the fractured form of the post-apartheid South African City. She completed her Part III at the Bartlett in Bloomsbury.
Anastasia Rosca MArch
Anastasia joined Hugh Cullum Architects in 2021. She gained experience working for various London practices specialising in commercial and high-end residential projects. which she managed from beginning to end. This involved overseeing the entire design process and the interior design in detail with an emphasis on creating bespoke items. Anastasia graduated from Ion Mincu University in Bucharest. Her projects focused on the urban regeneration of historical parts of Bucharest that have suffered from years of neglect by the local authorities. In 2020, Anastasia gained her Part III degree from Westminster University, London.
Jo Holden
Administrator
Jo joined the practice in July 2022 as part-time administrator from a background as a personal assistant and administrator in arts-based companies.
Christiane Ten-Hoopen MA PhD (University of Amsterdam)
Christiane ten-Hoopen established Bloomsbury Design, the art gallery that fronts the HCA office premises (click here for BD website), in 2006. The exhibitions range from interior design and ethnic craft (textiles, furniture, ceramics) to the work of painters, sculptors and other artists. Originally a musician and musicologist she was awarded a British Council Fellowship to undertake further studies in electroacoustic music at City University, London, in 1987 and subsequently worked at the University of Amsterdam and the GRM in Paris.