About

With a legacy stretching from 1962, H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture is a collaborative community of professionals guided by the design legacy of Hugh Hardy, FAIA. Dedicated to the creation of active public spaces, H3 is a recognized leader in the planning and design of performing arts centers, theaters, museums, libraries and parks, as well as corporate, academic, residential and commercial facilities.

Our focus on public building types informs a design approach responsive to context. We honor the cultural heritage of a community, adapting our architecture with each project. Energy-efficient facilities and LEED-accredited professionals confirm our commitment to the built environment, its landscape, sustainability and renewal. And as designer for the GSA’s first large-scale project to use building information modeling, we embrace technology by ensuring all H3 projects apply this innovative process.

Our restrained size permits us to tailor our attention to a select number of clients. We keep our client relationships intentionally intimate, and encourage their involvement from a project’s beginning to end. We have developed a distinctive and successful approach to design that fosters dialogue among history, innovation and contemporary use.

Process

H3 is a community of professionals guided by the design visions of Hugh Hardy, FAIA. The firm indeed has a legacy with Hugh Hardy, but we are more than remainders from a previous firm resting on past laurels. We are a young firm emerging as innovators, winning new and challenging work based on architecture’s fundamental premise: collaboration.

We recognize that the best ideas can come from anyone, from the most senior designer to the newest intern, and we foster an environment where everyone feels comfortable to speak up and present an idea. We extend this notion of collaboration to our clients, consultants and builders, and have embraced technologies such as BIM that inherently bring together the various disciplines required to design and construct a building. The lines that separate architect, consultant and contractor are quickly fading, and architects must lead this collaborative effort or be left behind.

We accept that architecture is first and foremost a service industry. However, we believe that the client is not the only beneficiary to this service. Obviously, the client receives the benefit of our efforts, and in the end, it is the client’s needs and aspirations that must be met. But the process of architecture, the nature of discovery, and spirit of collaboration also benefit us as designers, as an office and as a constantly evolving profession. We approach each project as an opportunity for discovery.

If we feel the project or client has little or no interest following us down this path of discovery, we will often pass on the project. We have no interest in repeating ourselves or doing what has been done before, yet we do not feel compelled to reinvent the wheel. There is a balance between the fearlessness of innovation and the economy of repetition, and we believe that a project is best served by understanding the elasticity between these two forces.

Finally, architecture serves the community beyond our profession. We have an undeniable responsibility to engage the issues of sustainability and become the stewards of responsible growth. Not because it is fashionable. Not because it is mandated. But because it is right. We also believe that architecture serves the community beyond the basic notion of shelter and function. We focus on projects in the public realm because we believe that place-making builds communities. When architecture creates places to gather, whether evoking the open and welcoming spirit of a park, the contemplative nature of a museum or the united energy of a theater, then the discipline has achieved its primary goal.

We understand the potential in place-making, and how we service our clients, the profession and the community. We do not believe in a style of the moment or defying gravity. Instead we seek innovative ideas that are challenging, yet grounded in their context of place, time and culture.