30 Sep 2025 Partners in Preservation: David Hacin, FAIA, Hacin
Partners in Preservation is a new blog series in which Historic Boston Inc. welcomes our 2025 Corporate Partners to share why Historic Preservation is important to them. Here, David Hacin, FAIA, Founding Principal and Creative Director of Hacin, an interdisciplinary architecture and design firm, shares why he’s partnered with HBI to help save Boston’s historic places and spaces.
1.) What does preservation mean to your organization and your commitment to Boston?
When I was growing up, my father was an architect practicing in Geneva, Switzerland and he was very committed to his adopted city and its unique character — In the same way, over decades, I have felt ever-increasingly committed to my own adopted city, Boston. Like a European city, Boston, with its many “villages” and communities, is a place that reveals itself slowly and it requires curiosity to fully appreciate; when I first moved here from New York, I immediately started exploring and discovering the city’s complex geography and fell in love with all its unique nooks and crannies. The experiences I’ve had designing within these different communities, amidst such a historically rich context, have informed how our firm operates, not just on preservation projects but for any design work we may be hired for. The Hacin studio has been in the South End for the past three decades and our neighborhood has had a particularly strong influence on our process: It’s a community that’s not predominantly focused on individual buildings — it’s about the overall fabric and character of the area and the diversity of the people that are a part of it.
At Hacin, the architecture, interiors, and visual identity firm I founded in 1993, our design team subscribes to a view of preservation that includes carefully preserving significant structures, adapting historic buildings for modern use, and building new projects on historic sites. In this way, we can create places that are inspired by the past and honor the character of an area while simultaneously sparking the energy of the neighborhood. Over the past three decades working in a city dense with notable architecture, Hacin has surgically intervened in projects across typologies and communities. As a result, our team is well-versed in identifying innovative solutions to meet the goals of preservation agencies, the technical requirements of new and existing buildings, and the programmatic needs of our clients, all while keeping the context and history of a site alive in multiple ways.
I work with an incredible team of architects and designers, and we all have the same goal, which is to enhance what makes Boston such a special city.
2.) How does working with Historic Boston Inc. further your own work?
Our firm has had the pleasure of engaging with Historic Boston, Inc. for many years as part of the larger community of preservation-minded individuals and organizations in the city. I’ve been honored to serve on HBI’s Board and our firm has also had the opportunity to work on design projects within HBI’s portfolio, most recently with the St. James African Orthodox Church at 50 Cedar Street in the Highland Park area of Roxbury. Being able to work as an active participant in the preservation and revival of these sites, adding another layer to their story, is meaningful work that we’re honored to be a part of.
Rendering of St. James African Orthodox Church at 50 Cedar St.
83 Gardner St in Allston, photograph by Bruce T Martin.
The Whitney Hotel, photograph by Chuck Choi.