Who are we?

Exciting Places

Architecture by Studio HIVE was born out of the willingness and desire to do something different - to create exciting places across a variety of sectors with a bold, yet sensitive approach to each project.

We have a unique skills-set in developing places from small-scale projects to entire urban developments. As a regional architecture and design practice, we fuse placemaking and user-centred design with large scale infrastructure skills.

Our Story

Architecture by Studio HIVE are part of the Studio HIVE group; a group of talented property professionals, project and development managers, architects and designers, surveyors, sustainability and building experts, all in one company.

Studio HIVE was formed in 2014 with an experienced team that had worked together for over a decade and given our inbuilt desire to impact on all aspects of the development process, it was never going to be too long before we got our felt pens out and started scribbling.

Architecture by Studio HIVE was therefore established in 2020 with a team holding a wide-ranging professional background from some of the UK’s leading architectural practices and has a long history of working together as individuals.

Our Purpose

  • Your habitat maybe the environment you are accustomed to living in but the origins of habitat may not be what you would expect. The word goes back to the Latin ‘habitare’ meaning, “to live or dwell,” which itself goes back to habere meaning “to have or own.” It seems logical that if you own a place, it is your home.

    At Studio HIVE, we think that we combine location, ecology, knowledge, contemporary design, and quality to enable us to give your family or business a habitat to thrive. Location is a key factor in any property decision, but you cannot create a great place by placing a beautiful building in isolation. The space around the building is as important as the building itself.

    Enhancing and linking with the landscape, be it urban or in the countryside is vital. In creating new places, we create this linkage with the habitat, we create your new habitat, your environment:

    Placemaking, in short, is the building or the strengthening of physical community to create great human habitats.

    The Studio HIVE team are fortunate to be based in Clifton, Bristol, one of the most desirable habitats in the country. We thrive in this ‘locale’ and we understand the quality of it, aiming to bring these qualities to every development we invest in.

  • DescriptioInnovation is the crucial element of everything we do. Be that creating a new product, with a new technology or a new method, or finding that solution to a difficult site or complex heritage asset. Without this approach we would stand still, there would be no progress. Innovation drives us forward.

    Over the last 30-40 years many developers have not been innovative, they have not embraced the changing environment, planning system or occupier trends and as a result they no longer exist. We have pushed the envelope to explore the potential in the most difficult of development sites and have looked to use the changing planning and sustainably agenda as a platform for our approach to innovation, allowing us to maximise the opportunity before us.

    Our dynamic team look at things differently; from our approach to securing the land initially, through the way we plan design, innovate, and finally put the buildings together, we challenge the design and market norms to ensure we deliver the right solution for each opportunity.

    The design approach we take represents our deep ambition to find value while making use of the raw material we have. Be that a confined development site or an under-utilised building, which is considered redundant by others.

    We aim to break the mould in the spaces and buildings we create, upholding our core design principles. This is not vanilla housing or boring office spaces; this is space that drives value and inspires people.n text goes here

  • Our approach to development is to explore each opportunity to the maximum. One size does not fit all. We will not roll out a standard product; there are plenty of others doing that in a crowded and mediocre development market.

    In an ever-changing market we adapt our approach. We recently purchased a site with an ambition to deliver a housing scheme; but due to the market and planning constraints we moved to a student scheme, working with Atlas Land to drive a more viable solution; adapting our offering enhanced

    our returns. We aim to be adaptable on all our developments; our ambition is not to follow a single-use class, but to deliver the right solution to each site we apply ourselves too. We will explore all investment asset classes: mixed tenure and mixed-use.

    We have been doing this for many years and our developments have stood the test of time and outperformed others. The flexibility of the spaces has allowed them to adapt to the changing market and maximise the long-term value for the landowners and occupiers alike.

  • We know that in order for development to be sustainable, we must address all three pillars of sustainability: social, economic and environmental.

    Our aim is to create well-designed, beautiful homes work spaces and communities; allowing people to live happy, healthy, and environmentally positive lifestyles. We do not believe in having a standalone sustainability strategy. Instead, we integrate our vision of generating long-term value and creating successful sustainable places where people aspire to live.

    We specialise in developing individually designed, high-quality buildings with low environmental impact.

    We think that you can live sustainably without compromising on lifestyle. Our schemes are developed around the things we know people look for in a great place to live and work; high quality buildings and public realm, transport links; and access to jobs and amenities. To us, the development should not just be energy efficient, but must engage the community in order to deliver buildings. Good engagement reduces conflict and, most importantly, allows communities to have an influence over the future shape of where they live.

    Engagement is key to gaining support, to drive innovative and pragmatic solutions for not only homes, but also new communities and new developments, which can sustain the environment.

The team has a strong creative ethos and a shared ambition to deliver interesting and complex developments.

Being a small team with varied expertise enables us to work with great flexibility and with a high level of collaboration. Adapting to client requirements, project specific challenges or new policy is an intrinsic part of how we work. Architecture by Studio HIVE work closely with each client, giving them the ability to help shape their vision whilst offering exciting solutions that may not have been initially considered.

Architecture by Studio HIVE is part of the Studio HIVE family.

Studio HIVE provides innovative property solutions; they lead and inspire developers and investors to create new, exciting places. They want to improve our Habitat, be Innovative in our approach and be as Versatile as possible in a changing world where the Environment is more important than ever. Studio Hive are a group of talented property professionals, project and development managers, surveyors, sustainability and building experts. They engage with the very best and most exciting consultants to help deliver your vision.