Looking toward a second century of design excellence.

In the world of architecture, interior design, master planning and historic preservation, it takes an innovative firm to grow and evolve over almost a century of practice into a national and international player.

Swanke Hayden Connell Architects (SHCA) is just such a firm. It began in 1906 as Walker & Gillette and has evolved to a 300-member global organization with its roots in New York City. It also has offices in Washington, D.C.; Miami, FL.; Stamford, CT.; Newark, N.J.; London and Sheffield, U.K.; Paris, France; and Istanbul, Turkey.

In recent years, SHCA has greatly diversified its practice, successfully completing high-profile projects and design assignments in the corporate, institutional, hospitality, commercial, healthcare, academic and residential markets.

"We seamlessly integrate all of our practice areas--architecture, master planning, interior design, strategic planning, workplace consulting, and historic preservation," noted Cynthia Kracauer, AIA, managing principal for SHCA's New York office.

"Our objective is to provide clients with the resources and technical expertise necessary to complete their project, no matter what the technical and design challenges may be."

SHCA's extensive list of award-winning projects is testimony to the success of this approach. Recognition of its business strategy was also conveyed by the Society of Registered Architects which gave SHCA the coveted National Firm of the Year Award for 2003.

The award was given in recognition of the firm's "continuing dedication to design excellence, its achievements in historic preservation, and its growth and diversification over the past 40 years."

SARA cited the time's restoration efforts on the U.S. Capitol building and the Statue of Liberty; its expansion into global markets in the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, India, South America and China; and its work in such sectors as commercial, educational, healthcare, hospitality, residential and retail design.

Over the past 30 years, SHCA has been commissioned for more than 50 buildings totaling more than 20 million square feet, with a construction value exceeding $2 billion worldwide.

"Our sustained success is represented by more than 1,400 separate repeat commissions during this period just for interior design alone," Kracauer pointed out.

Several recent SHCA assignments illustrate the diversity of the firm's work. These include the new corporate headquarters for Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) in New York City, the Moscow International Business Center in Russia, and the Nassau County Public Safety Center on Long Island.

The BBH project involved the relocation of the financial firm's headquarters from 59 Wall Street to 140 Broadway in New York City. SHCA's work included base building infrastructure upgrades; interior design; and branding and graphic design for trading areas, personal client service areas, executive and private dining space, and training and general office space.

BBH occupies the lower 20 floors including a primary entrance fronting the public plaza, distinguished by the well-known Noguchi cube. The elegant lobby features a white marble spiral stair that ascends to a double-height banking floor above.

Taking advantage of the double-height space, a mezzanine was added to create a stack of intimate conference rooms and dining rooms linked by a double-height gallery.

"The success of this tremendous project was achieved through careful, patient, creative and responsive design and the consensus building and collaborative skills of our entire design team," Kracauer explained.

The Moscow International Business Center, now under design, will include over two million square feet of space on a 1.5 million square foot site. The building will have 50 floors of commercial office space based on a Class "A" U.S. occupancy standards. Above the office space will be a sky lobby with amenities to be shared by the offices as well as 20 floors of residential apartments.

The tower will sit on four floors of retail space that will relate to a nearby retail complex. The project is part of a new 30 million square foot mixed-use complex that is being developed on a 60 hector site west of the Moscow city center. For the Nassau County Public Safety Center, SHCA is providing architectural, interior design and graphic design services for a new facility that will consolidate existing operations from 11 different locations.

It will house all of Nassau County's Police Department headquarters functions as well as the majority of police bureaus and squads, the office of the Fire Marshall, emergency services and arson/bomb squad. The center will include a detention area, the police academy, communications and information systems and labs, and a garage and storage space for some of the county's fleet maintenance function. In addition, the program includes a 300-seat assembly hall, a public business transaction entrance, and a police museum.

The Nassau County project is indicative of the expertise SHCA has developed in the design of police, fire and emergency operation centers. The firm designed the New York Office of Emergency Management center that was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, and is now working on planning a new center. SHCA has worked for years with the Fire Department of New York, designing its Headquarters, Command Centers and a number of its Dispatch Centers as well as the new Training Center on Randall's Island.

It is SHCA's 97-year dedication to design excellence that has led to award-winning projects and repeat commissions. The commitment includes building a talented design team that can manage the design process to ensure a successful outcome.

Toward that goal, SHCA recently named three new design directors--Roger Klein, AIA, director of architectural design; and Randy Fahey and Agatha Habjan, co-directors of interior design.

Klein is responsible for overseeing the design teams for all architectural projects in SHCA's New York office, including commercial, retail, educational and public sector projects. He joined the firm in 2003 as an associate principal and has led the design of the Moscow Tower as well as the re-cladding of a 17-story building in Manhattan for the United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York.

As co-directors of interior design, Fahey and Habjan share responsibility for managing all interior design projects in the New York office. Habjan joined SHCA in 1998 and has been responsible for major interior projects undertaken for such prestigious clients as Sotheby's, Reuters America and Brown Brothers Harriman.

Fahey has more than 20 years of design experience on behalf of major financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, non-profit organizations and corporate clients. Some of his recent projects include the new headquarters for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a new campus location for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and an office building for Citibank in Bahrain.

With its new team leaders, a continuing commitment to design excellence and a seamless integration of its various practice areas, SHCA is evolving to meet the challenges of new and repeat commissions every single day. The firm is looking ahead to a second century of accomplishments.