Jonathan is a deliberate generalist, but immerses himself in the unique cultures, constraints, and realities of those who will finance, occupy, maintain, and depend on each of his projects. His professional works have ranged from car service centers to a mechanical plant for a chocolate factory; from low-income housing in New York City to boutique Aegean hotels; from mosques to a compressed earth cabin for the caretaker of an olive grove. As Director of Design at Rahma Group/Al Shaafi Holding, he managed the design of a 60.000 m² resort community in Libya, as well as a 400.000 m² regional medical campus, which built on his earlier research into the relationship between healthcare outcomes and the built environment. Jonathan has contributed to architectural projects in New York, Texas, Austria, Germany, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Bulgaria, Sénégal, and Libya.

Jonathan’s work carries traces of the internal negotiations and contradictions of architectural and interior design practice – tensions shaped by a distinctive intellectual formation. From 2000 to 2005, as Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, he examined the sociological implications and dissonances of architectural design for clients, occupants, and consumers, from a position of analytical distance rather than aesthetics, advocacy, outcome optimization, or even philosophy. An article in the peer-reviewed bilingual journal Candide, entitled "MacGuffin’ Behind the Curtain: Interindividual Explanations of Innovation in Architecture," was one product of this research.