Architectural firm Aedas announces demerger

ARCHITECTURAL firm Aedas, which has two offices in Yorkshire, is to undergo a demerger with immediate effect.

The 13 offices in China, South-East Asia, the Middle East and the US, will continue to operate under the Aedas brand but the eight UK offices and the offices in Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan will operate under the new name AHR.

A statement from the firm said the demerger will allow both companies to focus on their respective strengths and will enable them to grow the businesses in different directions. The intention is that both groups will continue to work together on projects in the future.

Keith Griffiths, chairman of Aedas, said: “This move reinforces Aedas’ primary aim to provide international design services to the major world cities through our network of 13 offices and 1,400 staff.”

Brian Johnson, chairman of the new UK practice, said: “We believe that this is a very natural evolution based on how the practice has been operating in recent years and to all intents and purposes there will be no change for our clients or our 450 staff.”

In the UK, AHR, will continue to operate from offices in Birmingham, Shrewsbury, London, Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow.

Later this year AHR also plans to open an office in Dubai, where it is currently working on a number of high-profile education and health projects, the latter being a sector is has specialised in in recent years.

Aedas was established in 2002 with the coming together of LPT Architects in Hong Kong and Abbey Holford Rowe in the UK to become Aedas LPT and Aedas AHR respectively.

Following a merger with Birmingham’s TCN Architects in 2003, the name Aedas was adopted for all areas of the practice with the LPT and AHR being dropped from the Hong Kong and UK practice names later that year.