Hawdon Russell was a coming together of Phil Hawdon and Ian Russell, who met at Kirklees Council Architect’s Dept. We both had our own part-time practices and in collaboration we were able to open an office, on a shoestring. The office fulfilled a vital desire – to have a front door off a main street so that anyone could walk in – access to all without fear or favour, and in 1986 the shop on Wharf Street answered this perfectly.

Originally we intended to share resources but maintain our 2 separate practices but this eventually merged into one. We quickly realised that the open door, as opposed to being upstairs behind a brass plaque, really did provide a service to those who might never think of using an architect. We were also mistaken for the local estate agent, and inevitably, we became child minders for people wanting to rush to the shops.

Our practice developed rapidly, carrying out small scale improvements to people’s homes, approached by the local Cheshire Home to upgrade their residential accommodation lead to over 20 years of detailed study and improvement for a very special part of the community, a similar approach by a local private school resulted in major projects including a nursery, upgrading a swimming pool and creating a theatre, approached by local churches resulted in many improvement projects for both established and non-conformist churches, including a completely new church. And hundreds of small and large scale projects covering existing and new houses, factories, shops, offices and town centre public realm work and a vast amount of historic building work of all grades. We have won Civic Trust and English Heritage awards, conservation and re-use of redundant buildings awards and have had very many recommendations and testimonials from satisfied clients. Our commitment to the environment has been with us since the beginning – we design with environmental issues high on the agenda, determined that our world will be a better and greener place as a result of our actions.

Our offer to everyone is that we will listen, we’ll take on the issues and we’ll do everything we can, wholeheartedly, to satisfy the needs of a particular project, and obviously we want to produce good architecture in the process. We treat all projects as if they were our children, jealously and protectively and committedly.