• Architecture

  PCA is an architectural practice invested in designing spaces that reflect the art and business of what’s possible. We partner with you, our clients, to solve your toughest design challenges.

  Clients come to us — and come back to us — because we’re masters of balancing poetry with practicality. We are creative problem solvers who combine a business-minded approach with the belief that what a place says and how it feels are as important as how that place functions. The result? Built environments that reach beyond expectations and provide the ideal framework for our lived experiences.

• Interior Design

  Led by our Director of Interior Design, Tracy Dupont, PCA’s interior design group is integral to the way we function as a firm. Working hand in hand with the architectural team, interior designers examine the building from the scale of the user, ensuring functionality but more importantly creating an environment that inspires. Interior design isn’t an additive at PCA. It’s a fundamental. As a combined practice, we make buildings that work inside and out.

• Planning

  At its best, planning is the creation of a context that supports civic or commercial activity grounded in a vital sense of place. PCA believes that the public realm is the glue that holds great places together – it’s the spaces between buildings where life really happens. Our diverse background enables us to move seamlessly between planning and architectural scales. We provide all levels of planning — from the urban planning of city blocks to site master planning of town centers— for clients in the academic, retail and housing sectors. This expertise shines in our mixed-use projects such as Arsenal Yards and MarketStreet, where we have planned and executed developments, in some cases, larger than Boston’s Back Bay neighborhoods.

   

• Mixed Use

  As a multi-faceted firm with experience across market typologies, mixed-use is where we shine. Not only are we experts in housing, retail, hospitality and office separately, we know how they work together. Multi-use buildings and mixed-use developments are essential to the urban fabric and we know how to create places where people want to be. We think holistically about a project and how it gives back to the community, merging public and private priorities to create the next great neighborhood.

• Multifamily Housing

  Since our first multifamily housing project, we have excelled at designing places where people experience their best lives. We create housing across typologies – from market-rate and luxury, to workforce and affordable, without sacrificing design quality no matter the budget. As a combined interior design and architecture practice, we have had the opportunity to design buildings inside and out, like at Radius Apartments – a market-rate development positioned as a gateway to Boston.

  Housing is dear to our hearts and central to our practice. We relish in designing all types, especially affordable and adaptive reuse. We believe that affordable housing is the foundation of one’s health, well-being and long-term success and the adaptive reuse of buildings creates an authenticity not buildable from the ground. Take a look here.

• Retail Environments

  We are retail experts with experience designing environments that become central to cities and towns like the The Street located in Chestnut Hill. For us, retail is about a sense of place that sings when a dynamic public realm meets carefully curated tenants and events. We love designing places where exciting and fun things happen, from community concerts, to holiday festivals and the frequent Friday night out with friends. 

  For your project, we can create tenant design criteria and help position your site to attract people. People return again and again to places where they have inspiring, engaging and memorable experiences. When people develop a personal connection, this is a sense of place.

• Hospitality

  The hospitality industry is varied, and as architects and interior designers, we have worked across all its facets. From restaurants, and gyms to 2019’s #1 hotel in Boston – The Revolution Hotel, our skill in placemaking carries over to our hospitality design. We have a strong interiors practice that lends itself to the hospitality environment. Our planning and permitting expertise in turn helps bring projects from napkin sketch concept through to opening day – and keeps your patrons coming back.

• Educational Spaces

  Our work with higher-education facilities is informed by our work across market types – whether it’s a classroom, auditorium, dining hall or library, we have the experience to make it inviting. A welcoming student center or dining hall can become a crossroads for impromptu get-togethers, just as a residence hall can become a place students delight to call home. We work with you, believing that the experience a space gives a student is just as important, if not more important, than its function.

• Office

  We have successfully shaped a number of office buildings and their interiors to reflect the personality and vision of our corporate clients. Office buildings are very personal spaces with each project and each client being different, requiring a different approach and solution – one tailored to the challenge at hand. We are creative in the use of materials, often using common materials in new and exciting ways to create a range of environments: comforting, exciting, intriguing, perhaps all three. We bring a placemaking approach to corporate design – creating warm and inviting offices where people want to work.

The reason we’re here is to create the kinds of environments where people can live their best lives. People are at the heart of our practice. For us, it’s more than design, it’s building the environments where people live, work and play. Everyday environments are the building blocks of our society – it’s our job to make them special. From the grandest plaza to a modest park bench, from a brand-new residential neighborhood to a small retail complex, our goal is to create dynamic spaces that foster connections and enhance the public domain.

At PCA, we don’t just deliver what our clients ask for. We deliver what they need. Our talent is listening and finding solutions that meet shared needs. We are active listeners who work to execute our client's architectural and business goals.