White Heather House is an inspiring facility contributing to the socio-economic regeneration of the local area.  It gives life to an unused space to the rear of Southend based charity HARP’S pre-existing centre, to deliver the necessary support and accommodation for women in need and rebuild their confidence and livelihood. This is the first HARP centre exclusively for women.

The final cost was £50,000 under budget allowing this to be used by HARP to deliver vital services.  The total build time was 7 months, and it was completed in January 2017. 

The project provides a safe haven for women in need, through the use of creative architecture and landscaping, and has been awarded the RIBA East Design Award 2018 and was short-listed and a finalist for the prestigious RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize 2018 as recognition of how this piece of architecture has provided much needed and high-quality facilities for some of the most vulnerable members of the community. The RIBA judge noted ‘the White Heather House project represents not only the dedication of the practice to deliver projects that can contribute to the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of a place, but also their ability to use architecture in a considered and creative way that can change the way that the use live, whilst keeping costs to a low and working with tight site constraints‘.