Architectural firm thrives by focusing on rehabs of historic buildings
DURKEE, BROWN, VIVEIROS & WERENFELS
PRINCIPALS: Stephen Durkee, Douglas L. Brown, Michael J. Viveiros, Martha L. Werenfels
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Architectural firm
LOCATION: 300 West Exchange St., Providence
YEAR FOUNDED: 1994
EMPLOYEES: 32
ANNUAL REVENUE: WND
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Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels, an architectural firm that has gained wide recognition for its role in the Providence renaissance, is now setting its sights beyond Rhode Island.
In Lawrence, Mass., the firm is designing 160 residential lofts in a historic industrial building that’s being redeveloped by Bank of America, as part of BoA’s $750 billion initiative to create housing across the nation.
In downtown Lowell, Mass., it and frequent development partner Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse are on the short list of teams being considered to build Hamilton Canal, a 15-acre redevelopment of a former textile manufacturing property.
Although the location and scale of these projects are new for Durkee, Brown, they are consistent with the architects’ history of breathing new life into former industrial urban settings using sustainable planning and design principles.
In particular, the firm has developed a reputation for projects involving the use of historic tax credits, and negotiating their layers of regulation and oversight.
“We’re very focused on urban transformation and revitalization, adaptive reuse and the grow-smart ethic,” said Stephen Durkee, who co-founded the firm with Douglas Brown in 1994.
Durkee and Brown met as freshmen, on their first day at the Rhode Island School of Design, and became friends as they worked toward their architecture degrees.
They founded Durkee, Brown around a project in which they designed 45 units of affordable housing, and are still a local leader in affordable-housing design. But the firm has moved far beyond that, becoming literally one of the architects of the downtown Providence renaissance.
Durkee, Brown has designed the interiors of 12 signature buildings redeveloped downtown, including the Peerless Building last year, a mixed-use project for which the firm won an award from the Rhode Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Their role in the recent development boom has been no accident.
Understanding from the start that they would have a competitive advantage if they developed an expertise in preserving and reusing old buildings, Durkee and Brown brought aboard highly regarded preservation architect Martha Werenfels in 1996.
Michael Viveiros, a RISD graduate who became the firm’s fourth principal in 1998, came with experience directing institutional, commercial and residential design projects.
Durkee was at the center of a small cadre of city planners, private developers and Providence residents who envisioned the city’s revitalization more than a decade ago.
He is chairman of the Providence Planning Commission, and has held seats on the boards of the city’s zoning commission, the Capital Center commission, the Providence Preservation Society Revolving Fund and AS220.
In those roles, he has built close relationships with owners and executives at the city’s most prominent developers – including Cornish Associates, Baltimore-based Struever Bros., the Armory Revival Co. and Keen Development Corp. – that he said have been invaluable in a word-of-mouth business.
More recently, the firm’s reputation has spread to the Boston area, a development Durkee said came as “a real surprise,” because “you can’t swing a stick without hitting an architect up there.”
Though Durkee, Brown’s work is taking it farther from Providence, the architects say they have no plans to leave the city. But in May, they do plan to move from their address of nine years, on West Exchange Street, to a three-story building they’ve purchased at 111 Chestnut St.
The move is necessary to house a firm that has steadily grown. Durkee, Brown now has 32 employees, including 11 architects, many of them attracted by its commitment to smart-growth and green building principles.
Over the years, six architects have left to found their own firms in Providence. Durkee said he maintains cordial relationships with all of them, and he isn’t worried about competition incubated in his firm.
“We just need to keep excelling,” he said. “As long as we continue to do what we do, and do it well, we’ll be just fine.”
