HAKAN AGCA

Hakan is a chartered architect (RIBA) and an expert city planner / urban designer, who has spent nearly 20 years in practice. Prior to founding Cross Works, Hakan reached senior management levels and led global sectors in large multi-national design firms, and became a specialist in the design and leadership of highly complex large-scale projects and giga-projects around the world.

Hakan has recently spearheaded technology initiatives for gigaprojects such as NEOM in KSA, and the New Tashkent Masterplan in Uzbekistan, and continues to develop the Cross Works technology arm on projects around the world.

With this broad remit of experience, Hakan founded Cross Works with the objective to be more agile and responsive to client needs; to be able to select and curate the best-in-class collaborators with whom to create project specific teams & collectives; and to be able to choose the projects that will have genuine positive impact in the future. His design projects throughout his career have had a broad geographical remit spanning the UK, Europe, MENA, South and Central Asia and beyond, with clients in both the public and private sectors. In terms of scale, his projects have ranged from detailed architectural interventions and building projects, through to super-scale city and regional masterplans.

At the larger scale, Hakan has led multi-disciplinary design teams on projects as diverse as the Commercial Strategy for the Heathrow Airport Expansion through to new city masterplans in the municipalities of Istanbul (Turkey), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Cairo (Egypt), AlUla (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and within various other giga-projects across the Middle-East and Central Asia. He has had the fortune of working for a number of Heads of State on projects of national significance and leading large design consortia, but equally enjoys working at the small to mid-scale on architectural schemes and detailed urban design proposals. Such projects have been diverse and far-reaching, including schematic design stages on mixed-use commercial buildings in Delhi, high-end residences in Shanghai; innovation hubs in Riyadh; through to airport terminals in NEOM, and many more.

Prior to founding Cross Works, Hakan had already built, trained and led design teams at firms including Benoy, Gillespies and HOK; from winning and executing projects to establishing company / sector IP and branding. At Benoy for example, he formed a new sector for Masterplanning & Urban Design (and a new R&D sub-sector called Urban Analytics), and actively broke new ground for the firm in terms of project scope and location, as well as increasing company capabilities. It is this culture that runs through Cross Works; one of curiosity, innovation and reaching for the highest of standards, whilst providing true value and creativity to Clients and their assets.

Hakan is the primary point of contact at Cross Works and spearheads the business and indeed the design and technology teams, alongside his senior staff.