Designing Community

• Community Builders - We design buildings to engage and enhance the communities where they stand. Our firm tackles restorations, renovations, adaptive reuse, and infill projects with a variety of clients who we educate about the benefits of including public space and, such as shared greenways or community learning centres
• Civic Architects - Our award-winning architecture reinvigorates urban cores through various building types from residential to corporate to commercial. Creating housing from affordable to luxury and often with multipurpose components brings people into walkable, public-transit-focused neighbourhoods beyond business hours, increasing safety and sustainability
• Forward Thinkers - Sustainability is inherent in all of our designs. We restore numerous historic buildings, giving them new purposes and energy-efficient systems, allowing them to last well into the future while honouring their past. If we're not renovating a structure, we often design innovative projects for tight infill lots or reimagine functionality for underused or abandoned sites

This book celebrates over 20 years of Bonstra|Haresign Architects’ community-focused practice. It documents the growth and success attributable to the firm’s philosophy and methodological approach. Many beautiful images and descriptive text show that Bill’s and David’s design aspirations and cooperative work styles, shared by their talented, associate partners John Edwards and Jack Devilbiss and the studio teams, have produced not only award-winning architecture, but also architecture benefitting each project’s surroundings.

Bonstra|Haresign Architects serves a variety of populations and communities: urban and suburban, commercial and residential, civic and cultural. Projects range from affordable and market-rate housing to historic restoration, renovation and adaptive reuse. Typologically diverse projects are the essence of Bonstra|Haresign Architects’ architectural work and community-building efforts. And desirable community enhancement resulting from their projects is visible in Washington, DC, urban neighbourhoods as well as in eastern region.

Bonstra|Haresign Architects’ does not exist to implement the aesthetic tastes and wishes of a soloist 'starchitect' or prima donna designer with a signature style, yet design artistry is an essential goal of the firm. This complements Bill’s and David’s fundamental commitment to create contextually modernist architecture as an agent of positive change beyond each project’s site boundaries.