Henri Comrie

Henri Comrie is a South African urban designer based in the United Kingdom.

He studied architecture in South Africa and urban design in South Africa and the United Kingdom. He attended the Joint Centre for Urban Design in Oxford and the University of Greenwich as a Commonwealth Scholar where he studied under Prof Richard Hayward and Prof Nabeel Hamdi between 2000 to 2003. 

He has gained wide experience in architecture and urban design practice in South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique the United Kingdom and the Middle East during a career now spanning 30 years. He established URBA Architects and Urban Designers in Cape Town along with three partners in 2012. Prior to this he was an associate at PDP London where he was involved in regeneration proposals for Covent Garden and Earls Court. Apart from sustained involvement in practice, he is past chair of the postgraduate programme in urban design at the University of Cape Town and has lectured widely in both architecture and urban design in South Africa and abroad. 

In Southern Africa he has been involved in several high profile and complex projects at scale.  Most notable of these is his involvement as lead urban designer for the FIFA World Cup Stadium Precinct in Cape Town (completed in 2010) as well as a range of mixed use precincts for South African and international clients. These projects were all part of successful team efforts that relied on a combination of personal skills and efficient participatory methods.

Apart from his involvement in urban design, he is the author of several award winning buildings in South Africa conceived at different scales.He has developed a specific interest in designing responsive educational buildings set within well developed urban design frameworks and good backround buildings that have the capacity to endure as polite neighbours within a well balanced, total composition.