text ARCHI
Embracing Our Collective Community SWBR & 3t’s Quest to be One, While Positively Impacting Many
by Scott Townsend, AIA, 2021 AIANYS Director
Scott Townsend, AIA is a Principal of 3t, an SWBR Company. Previously he founded and was the Design Partner of 3tarchitects, a Troy, NY firm focusing on creating positive community impacts by design. 3t was recently acquired and has merged with SWBR, a firm that was similarly focused with a deep talent pool and a reservoir of goodwill in the community, with their clients and amongst themselves. Together, they will go further. Throughout Scott’s career, he has created and led firms acting on his belief that healthy places emerge from the heart and are sustained from within by its occupants, irrespective of outside policy. Scott’s approach is to engage with folks in their own communities, encouraging designs to emerge through collaborative efforts. Not designing for, from afar; designing with, from within. Beyond creating several social cause focused organizations, several of his firm’s projects began with Scott, prior to finding a funding source or any willing partners. He holds that addressing a community’s needs through collaborative problem solving will always find partners, and eventually funding.
Sheridan Hollow Charette Presentation
The Offer SWBR—specifically, Dave Beinetti, this year’s AIANYS’s Frederic Schwartz Community Development Award winner - approached my partner, Geoff MacDonald, and I in the summer of 2019 and broached the intriguing idea of our firms joining forces via an acquisition of our firm, 3tarchitects. Geoff and I were flattered. SWBR is a rock-solid firm with a stellar reputation and portfolio of work. Yet 3t had just come off its best financial year to date, and was winning awards and garnering attention. 3t’s trajectory was on the upswing. Why would we sell since, on paper at least, we did not need them? The question “why?” was at the root of most discussions and our thoughts over the months ahead. The answer of why to merge probably varied, but each team member answering it for themselves became paramount to considering a deal. From where I sat, any reason to merge must be sincerely offered and resonate deeply. We all knew the concept could possibly work, so we quickly began sharing data and providing answers to see if it would elevate into the realm of it probably will work.
The Analysis Bearing that in mind, our analysis began. The initial discussions quickly revealed—SWBR & 3t’s market sectors overlapped one another.
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3tarchitects was known for creating quality historic adaptive re-use, urban infill mixed use, market rate and affordable/supportive housing buildings and communities. Upon the merging of Geoff’s firm (MMA - McKinney MacDonald Architects) in 2016, 3t gained expertise in college and university work. We
