Eric Walker Hall was born on 10 June 1919 in Glasgow. The son of William Bedram Hall and his wife Jeanie Weatherly Walker who came from Aberdeenshire. His father came from Selkirkshire and was a civil engineer specialising in harbour walk. In 1925, the family moved to Woodside Park, Finchley, when he was appointed chief draughtsman to the Port of London Authority, Eric being educated at at Highgate School and the Architectural Association. His studies at the AA were interrupted by war service in London and in Austria where he was part of the allied forces occupation. After the war he completed his studies and was elected ARIBA in 1949. 

The following year he moved to Edinburgh initially living in rented accommodation and worked for the Scottish Office Health and Education Departments. He resigned this post in 1955 and took up teaching part-time at Edinburgh College of Art, School of Architecture. At the same time he opened his own practice. Initially the firm worked mainly on realising the post-war social building programme, particularly schools. He established himself in offices at Rock House, Calton Hill, Edinburgh, moving to 16 Moray Place in 1963. W Alistair Miller and E Douglas Sanderson joined him in partnership in 1960, the practice name becoming Eric Hall & Partners (sometimes Eric W Hall & Partners). By 1964 the firm had an Aberdeen office in addition to its Edinburgh one. 

Hall realised that a certain size of practice was essential to achieve design excellence and in 1965, to resist competition from English firms setting up offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, he merged his practice with that of Alan Reiach to become Alan Reiach, Eric Hall and Partners, abridged to Reich and Hall in 1978. The firm established a 'sound and lasting reputation; their stylish serious and light-hearted approach to the practice of architecture has left those who continue in this firm with an enduring and cherished legacy'. 

Hall served as president of the EAA and as Vice President of the RIAS from 1964 to 1965.  He was also a member of the Council of the RIBA with a special interest in the terms and conditions by which architects are employed. He also served on the board of Edinburgh College of Art and was chairman of the Scottish Building Contracts Committee and of the committee set up under the auspices of the RIAS to examine and develop the professional indemnity insurance scheme. In 1975 Alan Reich retired at the age of sixity-five, leaving Hall the surviving senior partner. At that date the other partners comprised George McNab and Stuart Renton, both originally from Reiach's office Alastair Miller from Hall's office; Peter Caird (from 1965); and Leslie Mitchell and Jack Oberlander (both from 1967); J.E. Douglas Sanderson had left in 1967. From 1978 the partnership also included John Spencely.

Hall also was a member of the Church of Scotland's Committee on Artistic Matters and served as a member of Lothian Presbytery (when session clerk at Spott Church, Dunbar) and later of Melrose and Peebles Presbytery (when session clerk at Stobo). 

Hall was tall and had a commanding presence. In mid career he lived in some grandeur at Bourhouse, a fine neo-Jacobean house by William Burn. In his spare time Hall pursued his interests in music, organ-playing, reading and gardening. He was a passionate planter of trees. He was a strong opponent of the generation of nuclear power and in particular of Torness, his home being at Bourhouse near Dunbar.

Hall retired in 198 because ‘there was a bit of a trough in the business and [he] could afford to do so.’ His retirement was part of a wider down-sizing of the partnership in the severe recession of the early 1980s which also saw the departure of George McNab, Peter Caird, Jack Oberlander and David Cochrane who had been made a partner as recently as 1980. In retirement Hall lived at Lyne House Station, Peebles. He died at Hay Lodge Hospital, Peebles, on 3 January 1999, survived by his wife, Rosemary Johnston.