Architecture

Sophie Hicks Architects was formed in 1990 by Sophie Hicks while she was a student at the Architectural Association in London. It has evolved continuously.

The practice started by designing private houses.  This taught us about listening to clients and understanding their needs and that attention to detail is key to producing a successful piece of architecture.

Sophie Hicks Architects has a long-standing involvement with the art world, a reflection of Sophie Hicks’s  personal interest in art. We have been commissioned to design a number of museum exhibitions, including “Sensation, Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection”  and  “Picasso, Painter and Sculptor in Clay” at the Royal Academy in London.

In the 1990′s and 2000′s, as shopping for luxury goods became a kind of religion, Sophie Hicks Architects was commissioned to give architectural brand identity to fashion companies. We created Westbourne House with Paul Smith, his eccentric “shop in a house”.  For Chloe, we developed a store concept and used it to design over one hundred stores worldwide.  We worked closely with Yohji Yamamoto and designed his flagship store in Paris.

Our approach was first to understand each fashion company’s identity and then to translate it into an architectural environment which embodied the evolving character of the brand.  We defined the  concept at the start of each project and then used it as a reference throughout the architectural process. This method of working now informs all our projects.

Sophie Hicks Architects has now entered a new phase: property development. In partnership with investors, we seek to acquire sites on which there is the potential to create interesting architecture.