Dreaming Up Designs with Andrew Bernheimer '86

“It was $40 to enter,” Bernheimer says, recalling that initial competition.

 

After earning a master’s degree in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis in 1994, Bernheimer worked nights with his graduate school classmate, Jared Della Valle, developing a concept for the contest, which challenged entrants to design a renovation of the Federal Plaza at the U.S. Courthouse in San Francisco.

 

The pair developed a design entry that would go on to earn them the first San Francisco Prize in Architecture, result in their first commission, and act as the catalyst for the establishment of their firm, Della Valle Bernheimer, in Brooklyn, New York.

 

“We were pretty ambitious and we just talked,” Bernheimer says. “It was always sort of at parties over beer. [We said] we would move to New York at some point and start an architecture firm without really knowing what that meant.”

 

Little did the young architects know, those discussions would serve as the building blocks for their future. That initial project also won awards from ID Magazine and the U.S. General Services Administration.

 

Now they work on a variety of affordable and high-end design projects, including private residences, commercial spaces, art installations, and public housing projects.

 

“I just like the fact that you get to make things, pretty simply,” Bernheimer says of his work. “All the effort you put in and all the difficulties you face end up usually as something that is of your own creation. It’s physical, it’s something tangible.”

 

Bernheimer began to recognize his passion for art in Jack Jarzavek’s art history class when he was a student at Rivers. Looking back, he says that class served as the jumping off point for his career.

 

“That class sparked my interest in going into an art-related field,” Bernheimer says. “At first I thought I was going to be teaching art history but when I got to college I decided that I didn’t want to write all the time and lecture all the time.”

 

Despite those reservations, Bernheimer’s original teaching dream eventually came true. Now he has the best of both worlds. In addition to designing and producing spaces as a principal at his firm, he teaches at Parsons The New School for Design. He has also held teaching posts at Syracuse University, Lehigh University, Rhode Island School of Design, and City College of New York.

 

The Rivers alumnus and his business partner have found themselves on the receiving end of numerous design awards from prominent museums, the federal government, the press, and the American Institute of Architects. They have also had their work featured in The New York Times, Architecture Magazine, and Boston Magazine, and shown at the National Building Museum and the Architectural League of New York.

 

Their efforts now focus on creating public, institutional, non-profit, and private spaces that are complex but economical and practical. Three years ago they designed affordable new housing for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

 

“All the things we talked about doing when we were young and starry-eyed in grad school – a lot of those actually happened because of our efforts,” Bernheimer says.

 

He laughs as he describes how architects never feel truly detached from their projects, even after the structures are technically complete, noting that the most rewarding moment of the design process is actually just before a project is finished.

 

“When each project is almost finished and you see your design as an almost-finished thing, that’s usually when you realize whether you’ve done it right or not,” Bernheimer says.

 

If Bernheimer’s accomplishments to date are any indication, he is definitely doing something right.