Alesker & Dundon Architects, LLC is a Philadelphia based firm of architects and planners known for its award-winning designs of multi-family housing, housing for the elderly, hotels, resorts, office building and historic and adaptive rehabilitations.  Alesker & Dundon Architects, LLC furnishes creative services in programming, planning, architectural design, interior design, construction documentation and construction administration.

The firm has practiced architecture continuously since 1969.  Known as Schwartz, Alesker, Reiff Architects, the practice was reorganized in 1974 as Alesker & Reiff Architects and later as Alesker Reiff and Dundon.  In 2002, the firm began operating under its present name of Alesker & Dundon Architects, LLC.

We are an integrated architectural planning and interior design firm whose principals are hands-on architects who control each project from programming through preliminary design and construction.  We seek to do both the architectural and the interior design work on all our projects to assure an integrated result and to avoid redundancy.  The depth of involvement of the firms principals allow us to deliver to our clients, buildings of the highest quality and consistent, dependable and personal service.

It is our policy that from the inception of any project a principal will assume personal responsibility, which will be retained until completion of construction.  Our staff and a closely aligned group of consultants function directly under the direction of the firm’s principals and associates.  The work and teaching background of the principals, as well as their awareness of social and economic considerations, allows the firm to translate complex program requirements into completed projects of real merit within the discipline of schedule and budget.

As a part of our design service we incorporate all reasonable and cost effective measures to insure site sustainability, preserve habitat, conserve energy and water, and provide a high level of interior environmental quality.  Should a client choose to seek LEED certification for a project, we have LEED accredited professionals on our staff and the ability and experience to provide this service.  Environmental sustainability is a continual concern of Alesker & Dundon and an integral part of each project design.

Our firm was an early advocate of the owner/architect/builder team concept and this method of operation has become a standard procedure for our organization.  We assist the owner in the selection of a builder or construction manager in the preliminary stages of a project, and work in conjunction with owner and builder throughout the design and construction, from the choice of basic system to the final finishing details.  In this way, we are able to assist in the control of project costs and to maintain a high level of design integrity and construction quality.

Alesker & Dundon’s multi-family housing work has included projects ranging from a community of 125 homes grouped into village clusters in Easton Pennsylvania, to urban high rise and mixed use housing.  Over the years the firm has designed more then 14,000 dwellings of all types and we are skilled in the design of complex multi-building sites.  Our specialized housing work includes a residence building for Children’s Oncology Services, Inc. of Philadelphia (Ronald McDonald House). This structure, which connects to an existing Ronald McDonald House, adds 25-guest rooms, dining, lounge, and supports space for children and the families of children receiving treatment at local hospitals.

Currently under design is Renaissance Plaza, a 5 phase rental apartment complex on the Delaware River in Philadelphia containing 1,411 apartments, 70,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and office space, parking for 500 cars and extensive public open space.  The project is a candidate for LEED Gold Certification.

Our hotel and resort design work has ranged from the $70,000,000 Sagamore Resort complex consisting of more than 28 new and rehabilitated buildings on its own island in Lake George, New York, to two award winning hotels at J.F.K. and LaGuardia Airports in Queens, New York. Our other hotel work includes the 450 room, 25 story, Hershey Philadelphia Hotel and Conference Center (now the Doubletree), the 33 story Rittenhouse Towers Hotel and Condominiums in Philadelphia, the 474 room Hershey Corpus Christi Hotel and Conference Center and a 136 suite Homewood Suites Hotel on the University of Pennsylvania Campus in Philadelphia.

Our historic rehabilitation work is equally diverse, varying from the conversion of an 1850's vintage, multi-building brewery complex, into an apartment and office community, to the historic rehabilitations of Philadelphia’s Pier 3 and 5, a unique re-use of two over-water cargo piers for housing, office, restaurant and parking use.  We have been architects for the conversion of numerous turn-of-the-century manufacturing buildings into unique housing.

An increasingly expanding part of our efforts has been devoted to the problems of providing housing to the elderly.  We have designed independent living communities in Wilmington, Delaware; Ventnor and Lakewood, New Jersey; and Chester and Allentown, Pennsylvania.  Each of these complexes provides a varied living environment and ready opportunities for interpersonal involvement.  Among the facilities we have designed for elder care are two skilled care nursing homes; a 180-bed facility in Berlin, Somerset County, Pennsylvania and a 90-bed facility in Bethel Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.  For both of these projects, the firm was deeply involved in the programming process and managed the work from conceptual design through final Department of Health nursing home approval.

The firm has recently been appointed architects for The Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center on the Delaware River in Camden, New Jersey.  This complex is to be developed as an innovation district and will contain 2 million square feet of high rise and low rise office space, 400 rental apartments, 70,000 square foot of retail, fitness and restaurant space and a riverside conference center, all in a landscaped campus setting.  Parking for the complex is concealed below on grade, gardens between the buildings.  The project is being designed to seek LEED Silver Certification.  The project allows the firm to, in one project, offer our client the benefits of our extensive and diverse experience in residential, office, retail, hospitality, parking, planning and environmental design.

Our administrative procedures and documentation are thorough, exacting and designed to keep our clients fully informed and involved.  

The variety of our work and our experience with large scale, multi-building development, has trained us in dealing in the approval process with the most difficult building and planning agencies, as well as active community groups.

The firm is large enough to offer complete services for the largest project, yet small enough to provide highly personal attention.  We take pride in our ability to create imaginative and innovative buildings, in context with their setting, and respectful and in harmony with their environment, and to creatively solve difficult architectural problems consistent with the clients goals.