Hafsa Bell

Hafsa is an architect with over a decade of experience. Her main skill and passion lie in the strategic and conceptual development of large-scale projects, emphasising housing. Her interest centres around the spaces between buildings, providing places for communities to thrive and using storytelling to communicate visions and understand what stakeholders need. 

Before joining the Spring 2023 Cohort, Hafsa worked in private architectural practice where she was responsible for several mixed-use schemes in London, the South West and Madrid. Alongside this, she also taught as a part-time teaching fellow at the University of Bath.

Hafsa has a degree in advanced energy and environmental studies from the Centre for Alternative Technology, and she ensures that any place she works on responds directly to its climatic environment as well as its societal one.

Guilford Borough Council

During her placement as a Principal Planning Officer at Guildford Borough Council, Hafsa handled and processed a caseload of major and minor applications. She wrote reports communicating the relevant issues to Planning Committee Members, the public, the applicant and their agents. She worked as part of a team on strategic site applications at various stages, including pre-application, application and appeal. Hafsa identified and assessed the relevant building, new development, or townscape based on its design merits and compliance with local and national policy and legislation before writing an officer report with a balanced recommendation for a planning decision. Where design or other aspects of the application could be improved within the application process, she engaged in dialogue with the applicant or agent to help them submit updated and improved proposals.