People — HCA

HCA studio team:

In building the HCA studio we have gathered people of talent and expertise. However, we very strongly believe that a team, regardless of the merits of its individual members, needs balance in skills and personalities to reach its full potential and deliver great things. Like a musical chamber group, this requires inspired leadership and a real capacity of the individuals to be aware and supportive of what others are doing. It also requires constant practice and training. We promote this through group design sessions and the studio ethos and, more formally, by sponsoring members to attend specialist courses and training.

HCA is led 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 both the Republic and in Northern Ireland.

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Hugh Cullum PhD (Cantab) RIBA SCA ARB

Director
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.

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William Adams MArch MSt (Cantab) RIBA RIAI ARB

Director
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.

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Giles Woodcock DipArch

Design Director
Giles joined Hugh Cullum 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. Giles also has a particular interest in emerging sustainable building technologies and how high-performance materials and systems can be incorporated elegantly into new design proposals. 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.

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Mutsumi Sekine Nash ???.ARB

Mutsumi joined Hugh Cullum Architects in 2025. She previously gained experience working with several design-led practices in London, across a wide range of sectors including education, art, retail, cinemas, residential, hospitality, as well as sustainable projects using Passivhaus standards.

Since qualifying in 2017, Mutsumi has specialised in high-end residential and hospitality projects, completing several Grade II listed period properties in London and throughout the UK countryside.

Through these experiences, she has developed a strong passion for technical detailing and the challenge of achieving practicality and performance alongside the aesthetic qualities of architecture.

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Christine de Beer MArch

Christine joined Hugh Cullum 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.

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Anastasia Rosca March

Anastasia joined Hugh Cullum 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.

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Jo Holden

Jo joined the practice in July 2022 as part-time administrator from a background as a personal assistant and administrator in arts-based companies.

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Christiane Ten-Hoopen MA PhD (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.