HTA Design’s argument is that housing quality depends on more than the number of homes delivered. The UK practice links architecture with landscape, planning, urban design, building physics, interiors and graphic design, then tests those ideas against land values, viability, construction programmes and the long-term management of places.
Projects discussed in a 2025 Building feature—including Greenford Quay in Ealing, a temporary modular-housing pilot in Romford, a retrofit studio in Hackney Wick and a tall-building scheme in Croydon—show both the ambition and the compromises involved. They are examples of HTA’s approach and interviewees’ views, not independent proof that every project has achieved better resident outcomes.
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What HTA means by better housing
HTA Design’s case can be stated simply: increasing supply and creating good places to live are related but different tasks. A home has to work inside an apartment, but residents also need usable streets, safe routes, greenery, social spaces, transport connections and a building that remains manageable after completion. HTA presents those outcomes as a design-and-delivery problem rather than an architectural styling exercise.
The practice estimates that about 90% of its work is housing-focused, according to Building in 2025. Its portfolio, as described in that profile, spans estate regeneration, temporary accommodation, high-rise housing, build-to-rent and mixed-tenure projects. Those categories involve different clients, regulations and financial models, so the same design rule cannot be applied mechanically to all of them.
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HTA’s leaders also make a deliberately practical argument. Urban land is scarce, land prices influence density, planning decisions set limits, and affordable housing depends on a business model that can support delivery and management. Better housing therefore requires decisions about who owns a place, who maintains it and how long investors and public bodies are prepared to wait for value to emerge.
From community architecture to a multidisciplinary practice
Roots in the community architecture movement
Building dates HTA’s founding as Hunt Thompson Associates to 1969. The practice grew out of the community architecture movement, which placed residents, neighbourhood conditions and social purpose closer to the centre of design work than a purely object-focused approach would.
That history helps explain why HTA describes its work in terms of places and everyday life. Eleni Stathi, identified in the 2025 profile as an associate partner, says: “What first drew me to housing design was its immediate social impact. It’s one of the few forms of architecture that directly shapes people’s daily lives,”. The statement is her explanation of motivation, not a measured finding about all housing.
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HTA now brings together architecture, landscape, planning, urban design, building physics, interiors and graphic design. Sandy Morrison, described as a design leader, explains the expansion this way: “We were just architects at first, but we realised you can’t create great places for people to live if that’s all you are.”
In practical terms, an integrated team can coordinate matters that are often separated between consultants. Building physics can inform overheating, daylight and energy decisions while a plan is still flexible. Landscape and urban design can shape drainage, planting, play areas and movement routes rather than treating them as late additions. Interior and graphic design can make shared facilities, entrances and wayfinding legible. Planning expertise can connect the physical proposal with policy requirements, tenure mix and delivery phasing.
Integration does not remove conflicts. More generous windows may increase heat gains or construction cost; a taller building can preserve ground-level open space while creating demanding fire, lift and maintenance requirements; and a public square needs a management plan as well as an attractive layout. HTA’s approach is to bring those questions into the same conversation.
Greenford Quay: density judged through public realm
The trade-off HTA highlights
Greenford Quay in Ealing is used in the Building feature to discuss what happens when a dense housing scheme is judged by more than internal apartment layouts. Morrison says approximately 80% of the homes are single-aspect. That proportion is a significant design compromise because a single-aspect dwelling has windows on one side, limiting opportunities for cross-ventilation and dual orientation.
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HTA’s account does not present the figure as an independent performance assessment. Instead, Morrison argues that the project’s spacious public square and its canal setting contribute to a distinctive character. Stathi describes bringing the canal frontage into the public realm as a way to create a meaningful destination.
What the example does—and does not—prove
The project illustrates a decision framework rather than a universal prescription. A team may accept more single-aspect homes in order to secure a connected waterfront, a generous square or a viable number of homes. That choice should be tested against daylight, ventilation, overheating, privacy, noise and the needs of different household types. A visually successful public realm cannot compensate for apartments that perform poorly, but apartment standards alone do not create a neighbourhood.
The feature provides no post-occupancy evaluation of Greenford Quay. There are no resident-survey results or published measurements in the account that establish whether the square, canal frontage or apartment layouts have delivered the claimed social benefits. Those outcomes would require independent evidence collected after occupation.
Romford’s temporary modular homes: an alternative to hotel accommodation
How the pilot is described
HTA and Wates Residential are reported to have delivered an 18-home pilot on a Romford regeneration site. The homes are intended as temporary accommodation for people in emergency housing, including families who might otherwise share hotel rooms.
According to the project description, each unit provides separate living, sleeping and washing facilities, together with private external amenity space. The homes are demountable, so they can be taken apart and reused on another site when permanent development proceeds. That reversibility is central to the proposition: land awaiting a later phase can provide a more domestic setting now without permanently fixing the site’s layout.
Why a temporary home can be materially different
A hotel placement can provide a roof quickly but commonly offers little control over cooking, sleeping arrangements, storage, privacy or children’s routines. Separate rooms and private outdoor space address some of those everyday needs. They also give councils and delivery partners an option between expensive nightly accommodation and waiting years for a permanent scheme.
Temporary housing still has to meet demanding standards. Residents need reliable heating and ventilation, safe access, good acoustic separation, secure tenure arrangements and clear information about relocation. Operators must budget for repairs, utilities, cleaning of shared areas and the eventual move. A relocatable design is useful only if dismantling, transport, storage and reconnection are technically and financially credible.
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The Building accounts describe the homes but do not publish independent performance data or resident-outcome research. It is therefore not possible to state from this evidence how the units compare with hotels on cost, health, educational stability or length of stay.
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Tall buildings and the economics of urban land
Why height appears in HTA’s work
College Road in Croydon places HTA’s work in the context of tall-building delivery. A caption in the 2025 profile identifies a 50-storey tower containing 817 co-living apartments called Enclave: Croydon, alongside a 35-storey tower containing 120 affordable homes.
Ben Derbyshire, identified as HTA’s non-executive chair, explains why the practice works for clients developing tall buildings: “The reasons why we work for clients who design tall buildings are the land values, the absence of land in cities, and the business model with which affordable housing is delivered.” His statement describes the forces shaping commissions; it is not an argument that height is always the best answer.
Questions a high-rise proposal must answer
- Homes: Are apartment sizes, storage, daylight, ventilation and acoustic conditions suitable for the intended households?
- Shared space: Do entrances, lifts, corridors, play areas and resident facilities support daily life, or are they residual spaces left after the units are fitted in?
- Public realm: Does the ground plane connect to streets, parks, shops and transport, with enough space for planting, drainage and activity?
- Operations: Who will manage lifts, façades, communal heating, waste, security and repairs over the building’s life?
- Tenure: Can affordable, market-sale, rental and co-living homes share a place fairly, with transparent service charges and access to amenities?
These questions matter because a tall building concentrates both opportunity and risk. More homes on a constrained site can support public transport and services, but failures in maintenance, overheating or vertical circulation affect many residents at once.
Stewardship is part of the design brief
From completion to a lived-in place
HTA’s leaders connect design quality to what happens after practical completion. Derbyshire warns: “Speculative housing is so often a pillage, left with poor management and maintenance so that a spirit of place never develops,”. The quotation is a critique of development practices in which short-term extraction takes precedence over care; it should not be read as an audited assessment of every speculative scheme.
Long-term stewardship includes a funded maintenance plan, clear responsibility for public and communal areas, realistic service charges, durable materials, planting care and a process for residents to influence changes. It also includes the ability to adapt buildings as households, technology and climate conditions change. A public square that looks generous on opening day can become unusable if maintenance budgets, ownership boundaries or management rules are unresolved.
The purpose HTA says it serves
Morrison summarises the practice’s orientation as follows: “We do everything in terms of housing. But the purpose of the business is places for people to live, where they want to live.” That distinction places resident experience above a narrow output metric. It also creates a test for clients and public authorities: the brief should define the qualities that make a place desirable and workable, not only the number of units and the date of handover.
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Hackney Wick: a studio used as a retrofit case study
HTA moved into a reconfigured Victorian warehouse in Hackney Wick in 2023, acting as both client and architect, according to Building. The practice presents the studio as a live case study in retrofit and building performance. Stathi says HTA collects performance data there.
No measured energy figures are published in the feature. The studio can therefore be described as a setting for monitoring and learning, not as proof of a quantified saving. Its relevance is methodological: using one’s own workplace allows a design team to observe comfort, energy use and operational issues after occupation, then feed those observations into future projects. A credible evaluation would need a defined baseline, a stated monitoring period and results that can be independently checked.
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HTA’s examples suggest a practical set of questions for councils, housing associations, investors and communities. They are analytical prompts drawn from the projects and interviews, not a formal industry standard.
| Decision area | What to examine | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Quantity and quality | Unit numbers alongside space standards, daylight, ventilation, storage and accessibility. | Targets count homes but omit post-occupancy criteria. |
| Density and public realm | How height and massing fund or shape squares, streets, parks, waterfronts and play space. | Public areas are shown in renderings without an owner or maintenance budget. |
| Temporary accommodation | Privacy, cooking, washing, outdoor space, safety, cost and a credible relocation plan. | Units are called temporary but have no destination or dismantling strategy. |
| Delivery and viability | Land value, tenure mix, planning obligations, finance and the effect of programme changes on quality. | Design reductions are presented as inevitable without showing the financial assumptions. |
| Stewardship | Ownership, repairs, service charges, landscape care, resident participation and adaptation. | Responsibility ends at handover. |
What remains unresolved
The 2025 Building profile and a related Building Design article are trade-press accounts of HTA’s work and statements by its leaders. They are not independent project evaluations. The material does not establish current HTA leadership, current status of every scheme, measured energy performance at Hackney Wick, resident outcomes at Greenford Quay or the Romford homes, or a verified source for the government commitment to 1.5 million homes mentioned in the feature.
Those limits do not invalidate HTA’s argument; they define what can responsibly be concluded. The projects show how an integrated practice frames difficult choices, while evidence of whether those choices improve health, satisfaction, operating cost or environmental performance would require published data collected over time.
The case HTA is building
HTA’s position is that better housing at scale depends on joining decisions that are too often separated: the apartment and the street, the planning application and the maintenance plan, the temporary unit and its next site, the density target and the daily experience of residents. Its history in community architecture and its current mix of disciplines give that position a coherent logic.
The harder lesson is that design cannot override land economics, viability or weak stewardship on its own. Those conditions determine which compromises are made and whether a well-designed proposal remains a good place to live. HTA’s work is therefore most useful as a challenge to the idea that delivery and quality are competing slogans. The real test is whether every project can explain, in public, how homes, public space, finance and long-term care fit together.
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