About us
Catja de Haas Architects is a research-led architecture and design practice spanning buildings, installations, and social projects to explore how space can support more caring, resilient communities. The studio combines everyday pragmatics – from finely resolved joinery and careful storage solutions to low-energy, Passivhaus-standard homes – with an ongoing inquiry into housing, landscapes, and the social life of spaces.
Practice focus: The practice works from furniture scale to urban plans, with particular experience in ecologically sensitive landscapes and areas of outstanding natural beauty where design sensitivity, ecology, and planning constraints must be held in balance. Each project begins with developing a narrative and brief in close collaboration with clients and partners, resulting in tailored, liveable spaces that make efficient use of light, materials, and layout.
Chi-Lab: Through the Chichester Laboratory (Chi-Lab), the practice operates an urban laboratory that links architectural design, research, and public engagement. Chi-Lab uses the city as a testing ground for ideas about housing, climate adaptation, and shared spaces, working with residents, students, and partners to prototype new ways of living together.
Giant Dolls’ House: The Giant Dolls’ House Project, initiated and led by Catja, is an international social arts project that invites people of all ages to create rooms in shoeboxes, which are then assembled into large, interconnected installations. These immersive installations invite reflection on home, displacement, and community, and have been staged with partners ranging from museums and festivals to housing and refugee-support organisations.
Values and approach: Across architectural commissions, research platforms, and participatory artworks, Catja de Haas Architects maintains a consistent commitment to sustainability, social engagement, and the imaginative reuse of everyday materials and spaces. The studio’s work aims to make architecture accessible and collaborative – something people can inhabit, shape, and discuss together.
Catja de Haas Architects offer architectural services for selected projects and consultancy work for clients seeking design advice at different stages and scales. Our consultancy services can include feasibility studies, spatial planning and layout advice, design reviews, or one-off concept sessions for those exploring possibilities without committing to a full project.
For full architectural projects, our process begins with an initial meeting to agree the scope of work and prepare a clear fee proposal. This is followed by an appraisal of how the occupants live now and may live in the future, so that layouts can accommodate change over time. Early design stages focus on sketches and options, using a creative, flexible approach to reach shared agreement before detailed drawings and documents are produced for planning and construction.
Sustainability and context are central to the work, with experience designing to fabric-first and Passivhaus standards, an interest in bio-based and local materials, and a sensitivity to light, landscape, and sense of place. The aim in every project is to bring these considerations together to create spaces that are personal, practical, and a pleasure to live in.
For an initial consultation contact us by telephone
+44 7803627426 or email.
Catja de Haas
Founding Director
Catja, PhD, RIBA, qualified as an architect at Delft University under Professor Herzberger. She also holds an MA in housing and Urbanism from the Architectural Association in London. Prior to setting up on her own, she worked for Itsuko Hasegawa in Tokyo where she worked on projects in Japan and Malaysia, and Alsop Architects in London where she worked as a project architect on the firm’s Dutch projects. Between 2000 and 2005 she ran a practice, Studio CS, with Sabina Riss. In that time she built the house in France.
The home in miniature was the topic for her PhD by architectural design (supervisors Prof Jonathan Hill and Christine Hawley) which she finished at Bartlett school of Architecture, UCL, in 2013.
The practice researches the home and housing while raising awareness of homelessness and the refugee crisis through The Giant Dolls’ house Project. The project is the result of her ongoing research into the use of imagination and miniature to explore the ideas of home, sustainability and community participation as well as the dolls’ house as a medium to bring about change. Catja has exhibited her own work and has presented her work at conferences and universities. She has been a visiting lecturer and crit at various universities.
Mariia Rusanova
Passive House Designer and Architectural Assistant
Mariia is a qualified Passive House Designer. She came to the office in 2022 and works as a part 2 in the office. She trained in Ukraine where she was also a researcher. At Catja de Haas Architects she has worked on competitions and refurbishments. She has extensive REVIT and BIM experience.
Mariia received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in architecture and urbanism from KhNUCEA, Ukraine. She is currently writing her PhD on the preservation and popularization of the largest Avant-garde architecture heritage site in Kharkiv. She is the author of dozens of articles and theses and a participant of All-Ukrainian research projects. Before coming to the UK she had 5+ years of industry and teaching experience.