SHH Appoints Two New Associates to Create a Six-strong Middle Management Team

Architecture and design agency SHH has appointed two new Associates to its management team, creating a six-strong tier of middle management, the largest in the company's history.

The two new Associates are Brendan Heath, formerly a Senior Designer at SHH and Rene Dekker, who is also Head of SHH's Residential Interior Design team. "Both new Associates have been with the company for several years" commented SHH Chairman David Spence, "and have very much proved their value to SHH as talented designers, capable job runners and real team players. This strengthening of the management team is both a reflection of the quality of Brendan's and Rene's contribution to the company and of our growth over recent years, both across geographical territories and across the genres of work we take on.'

SHH, first formed in 1992 by Chairman David Spence, Managing Director Graham Harris and Creative Director Neil Hogan, is now a 40-strong company in its seventeenth year of business. Whilst the first ten years of that period were spent building a reputation mainly in the UK, achieving note initially for its luxury, high end housing projects (an area in which the practice still innovates and dominates) and for its leisure and office schemes, the last seven years has seen SHH increasingly working on an international level with branding, housing, retail, hotel, bar, restaurant, leisure centre and office projects everywhere from Riga to Dubai, Hong Kong to Moscow, Lisbon to Bahrain and Pisa to Tokyo. The company's clients range from developers and private homeowners to the likes of Christie's, Savills and the Mittals.

Brendan Heath joined SHH in 2003 as a Senior Interior Designer, having worked previously in the UK for Tectonics (mainly on major office projects, which are his speciality) and before that for major practice Rice Daubney in Sydney, where he originally graduated with a BA in Interior Design in 1997. At SHH, he has worked on residential and restaurant projects as well as a new concept store for Savills in 2008, but his main work area has once again been office schemes, including concept work for a media centre in Qatar and the Farnborough Demo Lab (shortlisted for a Lighting Design Award). Most recently he completed the striking Manchester Square offices in central London for a private investment company, which won the prestigious Silver Grand Award in December 2008 at the ICIAD (International Council of Interior Architects and Designers) Annual Awards held in Guangzhou, China.

As Head of the Residential Interiors team, Rene Dekker specialises in the interior design, decoration and styling of high-end and luxury residential projects. Rene joined SHH in 2005, after six years in the UK working for designers such as Christopher Rowley and Bill Bennette. Rene was born in Holland and grew up and worked in South Africa, before coming to the UK in 1999. He has been a major factor in the growth of the interiors and interior styling offer at SHH, expanding the company's housing offer from new-build, refurbishment and interior architecture projects into interior design and styling. In 2008 he was named Bathroom Designer of the Year at the KBB Awards for his team's work on the North London House project (also shortlisted at the Andrew Martin Awards), whilst the Kensington House project - as well as being the front cover star project of leading magazines around the world from ELLE Deco in India to Contemporary Home Design in Australia to Hoom in Denmark - won the 4-star Interior Design over £100k Award at the Daily Mail UK Housebuilder Awards, also in 2008.

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