Firm

Whether new construction, historic restoration, or renovation/adaptive
reuse, Design Associates’ approach frees each client and project from dogmatic formulas and lets architectural design excellence thrive. Practical, workable, and buildable alternatives are set forth in response to client input at every step of project development. Design Associates' guidance and understanding leads to the best use solutions.

Long considered the preeminent architectural firm on Nantucket Island,
Design Associates began exporting its refined expertise throughout New
England with the establishment of the firm’s second office in Cambridge,
Massachusetts in 1983. Clients include private real estate owners and
developers, municipalities and institutions who seek out Design Associates both for its demonstrated sensitivity to New England’s historic fabric and this energetic team’s ability to create new buildings worthy of future preservation.

Hundreds of well-designed, custom single-family homes, hotels, inns, and country clubs, restaurants, recreational facilities, day-care centers, and many other institutional, commercial, and mixed-use projects are the firm’s distinctive, classic New England style--a signature which deftly balances history, architecture, and modern context. In recognition of Design Associates’ creativity and technical competency, since 1980 the firm has provided architectural services and consulting for “This Old House”, a nationally syndicated production of WGBH-TV/Boston.

The firm’s work has also been published in Historic Preservation, Cape Cod Home and Garden, Cape Cod Life, House and Garden, House Beautiful, Boston Magazine, Home, Traditional Home, Martha’s Vineyard Magazine, Nantucket Journal, This Old House Magazine and included in books such as The Timber Frame House, Nantucket Gardens & Houses, This Old House Kitchens, This Old House Bathrooms and Shingle Style Houses, Past and Present.