Bonetti Kozerski, New York: Collaborative, Creative, Cheerful.

“We’re a small to medium sized, very design-focused practice. Both my business partner and I are from Europe so we try to run our practice along a European model where our architects are jacks-of-all-trades,” states partner Dominic Kozerski. To that end, there is a wide variety of work allowing a broad architectural language to develop from the varied typologies of projects. 

In practice since 2000, Bonetti Kozerski felt the firm would benefit from the diverse mix of creative people in Soho from the outset. Frequent visits to local haunts like La Colombe coffee shop over the years means that while that mix has changed, this is where they feel like they belong. “We all collectively appreciate the street scene here in Soho,” proffers Kozerski. 

The space they occupy is one of the few purpose-built office buildings in Soho, which means there is good east and southern light. Everyone is grouped together with four people per bay; associates are dotted throughout acting more as mentors than taskmasters. “We really value our employees’ opinion and insight. We encourage them to pin up their work and keep the whole office informed about what they’re doing. Because our work is so varied we look for varied opinions and points of view on the diverse projects we’re working on,” says Kozerski. 

Weekly status meetings provide an opportunity to share problems and look for solutions in unexpected ways, a neat encapsulation for what the firm does in its design work. Field trips to projects under construction help explain certain levels of quality and details to employees, and foster the idea of being in a larger unit of people working towards a common goal. “We always want to be interested in what we are doing, to do good work and to enjoy ourselves while doing it,” says Kozerski.