Denise co-founded Bennetts Associates in 1987, with her partner Rab Bennetts, and played a strategic role in the overall design direction of the practice. She has been involved across the practice’s wide range of award-winning and highly sustainable projects, including major headquarters and City office developments, theatres, university buildings and hotels. She is a respected architectural critic, is an assessor for several awards schemes, and is currently chair of the RIBA National and International Awards Group. She also serves as an external examiner at all stages of education at architecture schools across the UK. She chairs the RIAS Nominations Committee, was the chair of Usable Buildings Trust, and became a trustee of Article 25 in 2019 and chair in 2020. She was a member of the BSR’s Faculty of the Fine Arts before becoming a founder member of the Faculty of Architecture.