Handel Architects

Handel Architects is an architecture practice founded in New York in 1994, with additional offices in San Francisco, Boston and Hong Kong. The firm works mainly in large-scale residential, mixed-use and hospitality buildings, and has become one of the more active designers of Passive House high-rise housing in North America. Handel is architect on The Geneva in Washington, D.C., the conversion of the two mid-century Universal Buildings on Connecticut Avenue NW into a single 15-story complex of 532 homes including 60 permanently affordable units, the largest office-to-residential conversion in the District’s history. The firm’s conversion and adaptive reuse work has grown alongside the wave of office repositioning in major U.S. downtowns.

Eight expertise areas organize the practice: multifamily residential, interiors, hospitality, mixed-use, adaptive reuse and renovation, sustainable design, office and workplace, and design technology. The stated commitment behind them is making cities better places to live, with buildings treated as catalysts for urban and social change rather than objects in themselves.

The portfolio reflects that range. Alongside the National September 11 Memorial, the firm’s work spans urban infrastructure and master planning, high-density mixed-use development, multifamily housing across all income bands, hotels, corporate headquarters, and buildings for nonprofit, institutional and educational clients internationally.

Sustainability is where the practice stakes specific claims. It has delivered Passive House buildings in the United States, including The House at Cornell Tech, along with the first LEED Gold office building in Chile and the first LEED Gold condominium building in New York City.

Client relationships tend to run long. Work for the Santa Barbara Bowl in California spanned nineteen years, and the firm produced an institutional master plan plus two performance buildings for The Boston Conservatory – the Hemenway Building and the Richard Ortner Studio Building. Community work includes the Fifth Street Farm green roof project.

Four offices carry the work: 120 Broadway, 6th floor in New York (212 595 4112); 735 Market Street in San Francisco (415 495 5588); 69 Canal Street in Boston (617 651 4790); and the Po Chai Industrial Building at 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road in Hong Kong (852 2803 2900). Gary Handel, FAIA, is managing partner, with Michael Arad, AIA, LEED AP; Frank Fusaro, AIA; and Blake Middleton, FAIA, LEED AP as partners, and Glenn Rescalvo, FAIA as consulting partner. Edward Tachibana directs Asia operations and Louis Koehl, AIA, CPHD directs sustainable design. Credentials across the leadership roster include AIA and FAIA membership, NCARB certification, LEED AP and LEED BD+C accreditation, WELL AP, and Certified Passive House Designer.