DHK ARCHITECTS: Designing Beyond Borders

A competition-winning hotel design, hand-delivered to a client in Venice by two of its founding partners, is not the kind of origin story most architecture firms can claim for their first international project. For dhk Architects, formed in 1998 through the merger of Derick Henstra Architects and KCvR Architects, that gamble on the Laguna Palace Hotel became the first thread in a body of work that now stretches across 18 countries in Africa, into the Middle East, and, as of this year, into one of the world’s largest architecture and engineering networks. “We had started to entrench our reputation locally and in parallel started winning work beyond South African borders. We wanted to grow our profile internationally and so we followed the opportunities,” says Chairman Derick Henstra.

More than 60% of dhk’s current workload now sits outside South Africa, spanning over 40 projects across the continent alongside a growing slate of work in the Middle East. That growth is the results of a compounding of small wins.

“As we built our business and brand here in South Africa, it was a natural progression that we would be noticed abroad. Once we won one or two projects, we became very intentional about extending our reach,” Henstra explains.

Today the studio employs more than 140 people across offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, working as architects, urban designers and interior designers alongside an in-house visual communication team, a structure built to carry projects from early concept through to construction detail without handing critical decisions to outside consultants.

BEYOND SOUTH AFRICA

That reach became formal in March 2026, when dhk joined 10N, a collective of architecture and urban design studios brought together by the Paris-headquartered engineering group Egis, sitting alongside firms based in London, Dubai and Riyadh. 

“This agreement represents decades of hard work, diligence and dedication by our teams whose collective talents have helped dhk to become the design force it is today,” Henstra said of the move. “We also look forward to a productive, creative, and mutually beneficial relationship with our new colleagues who are highly recognised as leaders in their respective fields. The decision to join the Egis Group presents an opportunity to bring our talents and experience into the network for the benefit of our whole team, and the global group.”

The scale of client sophistication that comes with that kind of network has changed what dhk is asked to deliver in the first place. “The demands from our clients are much more sophisticated than they were 10 or 15 years ago, in terms of what they expect from our expertise and how they define excellence,” says head of interior design Lisa Bridgeford. “The challenge is for us to translate what’s in our imagination and our creative assumptions, which may not be obvious. Being able to do this through 3D visualisation is an incredibly powerful language that shows the client what we’re dreaming about.”

BUILDING CAPE TOWN

Nowhere is that translation more visible right now than in central Cape Town, where dhk is simultaneously shaping several city blocks at once. The Madison, a 23-storey, 44 500 square metre residential tower on Bree Street, launched in July 2026 to a response that surprised even its developer: more than 1.255 billion rand in off-plan sales on launch day alone, with 176 apartments reserved within the first hour and 272 sold by midnight. Positioned on a full block bordered by Bree, Buitengracht, Dorp and Leeuwen Streets, next to the heritage-protected Bo-Kaap, the tower required a design response sensitive enough to sit within a Heritage Protection Overlay Zone while still reading as a landmark. Senior Associate Daniel Hookins, who led the project, explains the solution. “The building’s massing features a sculpturally articulated podium base that enables the building to interact with the surrounding streetscape.” 

Hookins has a rare vantage point on how the CBD is being rebuilt, having also worked on City Park, the adaptive reuse of an entire city block just three streets away into the Mama Shelter hotel and residences. “When we were appointed to work on City Park, I thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on a large project occupying an entire city block in such an incredible location,” he says. “Now, just three blocks away, we have another opportunity to shape a significant piece of the city. The difference between the two projects is that City Park is an adaptive reuse project with its own challenges while The Madison is a new-build development with its own character and complexities. Both projects, however, are about contributing meaningfully to the future of Cape Town’s urban environment.” 

Precision of a different kind defines 20 Rosebank, dhk’s latest addition to the Oxford Parks precinct in Johannesburg. The wedge-shaped site had defeated previous attempts to unlock its commercial value, until dhk’s design team resolved it with a five-storey spiral basement that corkscrews 240 parking bays around a central core, freeing up additional leasable area on the floors above. For developer Intaprop, the unusual engineering became the building’s selling point rather than its constraint, a piece of technical problem-solving now expressed through bronze aluminium fins and stone cladding on a striking triangular tower rising above it.

That same precision, applied over a much longer timeline, delivered the Longkloof Precinct in Gardens, developed across 15 years and six separate sites for Growthpoint Properties. In September 2025, the project earned dhk two wins at the Africa Property Investment Awards, for Best New Mixed-use Development and Best New Hotel Development. “We are delighted with this win,” Henstra said. “The awards reflect the commitment from our clients and professional teams to raise the bar for precinct-led design in South Africa.”

A GROWING DEMAND

That commitment is landing at a moment when South Africa’s architecture profession is being asked to think about more than individual buildings. Addressing the South African Council for the Architectural Profession’s education conference this September, Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane challenged the industry to consider “not simply what kind of buildings are being designed, but what kind of society is being designed,” arguing that quality architecture is itself an expression of dignity and that communities historically denied investment should never receive inferior infrastructure. It is a reminder that the demand for genuinely world-class design work in South Africa and across the continent is not shrinking, even as the projects grow more complex and the competition for them intensifies. 

For a studio that started with two architects hand-carrying a competition entry to Venice, dhk’s answer to that demand has been consistent: build the skillset locally, prove it on projects that test every part of the practice, and let the reputation travel. Joining a global collective has not changed that instinct so much as given it a bigger stage. With towers rising on Bree Street, precincts taking shape in Rosebank, and award-winning work already behind it in Gardens, dhk’s next chapter looks set to be written on an increasingly international map, built on the same intentional, project-by-project approach that got it noticed in the first place.