Bennett has practiced architecture in New York City since 1977. His professional focus has been on adaptive reuse, interior architecture, and community planning, all integrating the best practices of sustainable design. His practice is guided by his belief that a superior design is founded on a methodical process and a well-coordinated team effort. He relishes the lively discussion and intensive collaboration required to solve complex architectural problems and constantly stimulates his coworkers to think more broadly, more deeply, and more creatively. He believes in forms that are sculptural, uplifting, or calm, spaces that invite exploration, and materials that are tactile and surprising; he is intrigued by the rich dialogue that results from the juxtaposition of historic structures and modern forms and materials.
His career has encompassed a broad range of projects. For the Russell Sage Foundation, he joined a narrow brownstone to a modernist landmark to create serene scholars' offices, administrative space, and meeting rooms. For the Salvation Army, he added to and comprehensively renovated its 13-story Adult Rehabilitation Center in Brooklyn, incorporating dormitories in varied configurations and public spaces, including a chapel, to support the organization's therapeutic program. His high-end residential renovations range from an Upper East Side Manhattan townhouse, inspired by historical precedents, to a large apartment in a Fifth Avenue Rosario Candela building, whose design has modernist roots. He has also been responsible for technically complex projects such as the Brooklyn Brewery and Manhattan's first brewpub; worked on research laboratories; and played pivotal roles on sophisticated corporate installations and on multimillion-square-foot high-rise developments such as Cityplace in Dallas.
He takes particular pride in his planning work. He created architectural guidelines designed to preserve the design integrity of Radburn, New Jersey, a highly planned environment that was America's first garden city, and in his own home town, a small Hudson River community, he chairs the Architectural Review Board.
He is on the board of the Greenburgh Nature Center, in Scarsdale, New York. He earned his B. Arch. from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a registered architect in New York and New Jersey.
David has practiced architecture in New York City since 1980. His professional focus has been on adapting older structures to modern uses to give them new life; on interior renovations for both commercial and not-for-profit clients; and on new structures and additions. His approach to design is informed by a strongly held belief in the power of architecture both to elevate individual experience and to improve the world. He believes that good architecture grows out of synergistic responses to a panoply of concerns, including a celebration of the experience of individual users. Ever mindful of the larger vision for a project, David orchestrates and coordinates the forces and demands surrounding it so that the entire team works together to achieve the best possible outcome. He understands that in the same way a sound organization is greater than the sum of its individual parts, his designs truly sing only when they tap into and express the client's identity. His curiosity and passion for learning are coupled with a reverence for education and the arts; he has a deep knowledge of design and a thorough understanding of sustainability practices, urban architecture, and planning.
Primarily found in the tristate area, his works can also be seen in such diverse places as Puget Sound and Prague. Since his first project, an award-winning design for a school for autistic children (New Jersey, 1978), David has earned a stimulating variety of assignments: the conversion of 555 Broadway into an office building that transformed lower Broadway; Umo Ensemble's new performance and rehearsal studios for physical theater; the reconfiguration of residential spaces in historic buildings; and the New York City flagship center for All Kinds of Minds, an organization specializing educational assessments and planning for children with learning differences as well as the training of public-school teachers.
From 1997 to 2002 and from 2007 to the present, David has chaired the board of the Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center, establishing the Hudson River Valley's only modern National Historic Site. At Trinity School in New York City, he has served as a trustee from 2001 to 2007, as a vice president and the chair of the religion and diversity committee from 2002 to 2006, and as a member of its facilities committee since 1995. David has also been a member of the advisory boards of the newly opened Wild Center/Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks and of AltPower, a leading firm in the field of renewable energy system development and New York City’s top solar-electric installer.
He earned his B.A. cum laude and his M. Arch. from Princeton University and is a registered architect in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
