RHA: Expertise Built Into Every Detail
When Design Insider visited RHA’s London HQ for an exclusive interview with Liese Brandt, Managing Director, and Annabel Collins, Senior Project Coordinator, the conversation quickly revealed a business defined by knowledge. RHA is a brand built around expertise, which is visible in the way the team interrogates a brief, sources furniture, understands materials, manages logistics and protects the long-term success of a project.
For designers, procurement teams, hotel groups, operators and clients, RHA offers something far more valuable than access to furniture. It offers judgement, experience and the ability to recognise where a design decision may create unnecessary cost, waste, delay or risk. Crucially, the team knows how to resolve those questions before they become problems on site.
As Liese explained, the team is often brought into a project while the brief is still taking shape. “Sometimes a project will land on our desk with very little information. It may be a design intent rather than a full bill of quantities, but that is where we can start to break the project down and understand what is really required.” From there, RHA begins the process of questioning the detail, identifying the right manufacturing route and opening up early conversations with the client.
That early involvement is central to the company’s value. RHA understands how to move from aspiration to delivery, and it does so with the confidence of a team that knows products, factories, materials, certification, installation and the realities of commercial use.
Expertise Before Specification
RHA’s project process begins with detailed interrogation. The team will review the brief, discuss it internally, bring in the knowledge of its European office where relevant, and raise questions early. Those questions may relate to dimensions, finishes, costs, availability, waste, lead times, certification or logistics. For RHA, this stage is where expertise can have the greatest impact.
Annabel described how the team will often speak with factories and suppliers before going back to the client with practical recommendations. “We sit down as a team, discuss the project in detail and pull it apart so that we can understand where the challenges and opportunities are,” she explained. Those conversations allow RHA to identify small adjustments that can make a significant difference.
Material economy is a recurring example. A circular table, a specific stone thickness or a particular laminate size can have an immediate impact on cost and waste. By understanding how materials are supplied and fabricated, RHA can advise clients on where savings can be made while protecting the design intent.
Liese gave the example of a client requesting a 40mm thick stone table. The supplier advised that a 20mm stone with a built-up top would achieve the required appearance at a dramatically reduced cost. “That one change made a significant price difference,” Liese said. These are the details that matter, and they are the details RHA is trained to see.
Continual Learning Across the Team
That expertise is maintained through an active and extensive supplier network. RHA works with around 400 suppliers across Europe, alongside a smaller group of UK suppliers. The relationship is highly engaged, with European suppliers making regular visits to the London HQ to share product knowledge, material updates and technical insight.
Annabel described those meetings as an important part of the team’s education. “We really welcome those meetings because they are a valuable point of learning for the whole team,” she said. This ongoing contact allows RHA to stay close to new products, manufacturing capabilities, material limitations and practical opportunities.
RHA has also created internal systems to capture and share that knowledge. Notes from supplier meetings are circulated across the team, ensuring that information does not sit with one person. Annabel explained that, because the team works in a hybrid way, updates are shared internally so that “everyone is working with the same information and the same level of understanding.”
That collective intelligence matters. It means a designer or client can approach RHA with an image, a material direction, a technical requirement or a challenging brief, and the team can quickly draw on its combined knowledge to find the right solution.
Design That Understands People
RHA’s expertise is technical, but it is also deeply human. The team understands that furniture affects how people behave in a space. This is especially important in hotels, golf clubs, care settings and retirement living environments, where comfort, flow, privacy and interaction all need to be carefully considered.
Annabel shared an example where an existing soft seating area had been arranged with chairs facing each other in a circle. She advised the client to rethink the layout. “I explained that the space needed seating clusters, because guests need to be able to choose whether they want privacy, conversation or a moment of their own within a larger public area,” she said.
Liese described a similar principle in relation to coffee tables. In some lounge settings, one large coffee table can make a group of seats feel claimed by one person or one party. Separate tables can encourage more people to use the space comfortably. “It is a psychological consideration, but it makes a real difference to how people use a room,” she said.
This is where RHA’s role becomes particularly valuable. The team can advise on how a product will perform physically, visually and socially within a space. That understanding extends into the growing care and retirement living sector, where RHA is increasingly seeing demand for high-end, hotel-style environments that still respond to the needs of residents.
Annabel spoke about the technicalities that can be missed when designers approach care settings without specialist experience. Light reflectance values, seat heights, table heights, contrast, leg stains, curved edges, slip resistance and reflective surfaces all matter. “There are so many technical considerations within this sector, and they need to be understood from the beginning,” she said.
For RHA, those requirements strengthen good design. In skilled hands, a retirement living space can feel elevated, comfortable and hospitality-led while still being safe, appropriate and intuitive for the people who use it.
Logistics as Part of the Expertise
RHA’s expertise continues beyond the point of specification. The business has invested heavily in logistics because delivery, consolidation and installation are fundamental to the success of a project.
Liese explained that RHA receives deliveries every week, with goods arriving into its warehouse before being delivered onwards. The company operates warehousing in London and Sheffield, giving it flexibility across both southern and northern projects.
A key advantage is control. RHA uses dedicated trucks, reducing the need for goods to be repeatedly offloaded and reloaded. This significantly reduces the risk of damage in transit. “Because we control that process, we experience very little transport damage,” Liese said. “That makes a significant difference for our clients and for the success of each project.”
For clients, this logistical expertise removes complexity. Products may be sourced from Spain, Italy, Portugal and other European locations, but RHA consolidates them, coordinates delivery and ensures that the project is supported through installation.
The Hilton Charles de Gaulle Airport project is a strong example. RHA supplied bedrooms and public areas, drawing together furniture from multiple European suppliers before delivering everything as one coordinated project. Annabel and Ross travelled to oversee the installation, ensuring that RHA’s involvement continued through to completion.
A European Network With Real Depth
RHA’s European expertise has been strengthened by the RHAEU office near Porto, launched in 2021. The Portugal-based team gives RHA a direct presence close to many of its factories and suppliers, supporting communication, quality control, logistics and bespoke production.
Liese described the team as RHA’s “eyes and ears.” They visit factories, check items, support video calls with clients and help confirm details before products leave the factory. For bespoke pieces, that proximity is particularly valuable. A chair, table or banquette can be assessed in context, with the team able to show scale, finish and quality in real time.
This European infrastructure also helps RHA manage the added complexity created by Brexit. Customs, duties and documentation can create headaches for clients, but RHA has developed the knowledge and systems to manage those processes and, where possible, pass savings on.
The European office also supports RHA’s international growth. Much of the company’s European work comes through UK-based relationships, procurement partners and hotel groups with portfolios across multiple territories. The advantage for clients is continuity. Whether a project is in Margate, Edinburgh, Barcelona or Paris, RHA can provide a consistent point of contact and a consistent level of service.
Technical Confidence and Long-Term Accountability
RHA’s technical knowledge is another defining part of its expertise. The team is clear on compliance, testing, performance and certification. Fire requirements, CMHR foam, Crib 5 fabrics, severe contract testing, CATAS testing, rub counts and O&M manuals are all part of the conversation.
This matters because unsuitable specification can create significant problems later. Liese described situations where clients have been told by others that certain fire or fabric requirements are unnecessary. RHA will challenge that where needed. The company provides O&M manuals with fire certificates, foam certification and fabric care information, ensuring that operators have the documentation required for housekeeping, maintenance and certification.
The same sense of accountability is visible in RHA’s aftercare. The company uses branded lining underneath its chairs, making it easy for clients to identify where the product came from years later. Liese sees that as a mark of transparency. “We do not hide our name from the product,” she said. “If a chair has been in place for ten or fifteen years and a client needs a replacement component, we want them to know where to come.”
Annabel echoed that long-term approach. After a guarantee period, clients can still contact the team. “We would never want a client to feel that they cannot come back to us after the guarantee period has ended,” she said. “They can still speak to us, and we will always try to help.” That attitude is part of the service culture that has helped RHA build enduring client relationships.
Growth Built on Trust
Ireland is one area of growth, with new enquiries and repeat relationships emerging across hotel projects. RHA is also looking at further opportunities in Europe, supported by its existing client base, procurement relationships and the strength of RHAEU.
Across every part of the conversation, one message was clear. RHA’s leadership comes from expertise. That expertise is found in the material decisions that save money and reduce waste, in the seating layouts that better support guest behaviour, in the European office checking quality at source, in the logistics systems that reduce damage, in the compliance knowledge that protects clients, and in the aftercare that continues long after installation.
RHA is a brand that understands the full journey of a project. From first brief to final delivery, from specification to certification, from factory floor to finished space, its expertise sits behind every decision.
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