manifest AD was established with the intent to improve the built environment and to positively contribute to the community through good design and ethical practice. Many people ask what we do but we would rather talk about why we do what we do.

We do what we do because we believe that design matters. A well-designed environment improves our day to day existence. Well-designed buildings and spaces make life better and more beautiful. Well-designed spaces allow you to transcend the prosaic, be at ease, be yourself. Well-designed buildings are more comfortable, calming, and more joyful.  Life is short, time and expense for good design is effort and money well spent.

Buildings survive us. We live in and around structures built generations before we were born, especially in Philadelphia. We either coexist harmoniously with these edifices or we are tormented by them. If one is to embark on a design and building project one must acknowledge the impact, embodied energy and permanence of the effort that results in an artifact. What we make will and should survive us. Every built project leaves a legacy.

How do you want to be remembered? How do you want to leave your mark in the built environment? How do you want your descendants to consider and remember you? How do you want to engage the city? Your neighbors? How do you want to participate in the history of the city? Do you want to leave a permanent poorly designed scar on the city? Or are you interested in making something great that you are proud to acknowledge and pass down through generations to come after you?

If you are the latter manifest AD is the right architectural practice for you.

To this end we seek to engage individuals who share our belief in the importance of this significant communal endeavor. We seek collaborators rather than clients. If you believe in this approach to the built environment we welcome any contact from you regardless of scale or budget.