welcome

The Summer 2023 issue of The Narrative explores affordable housing, international school design, building equity, strategic planning, decarbonizing the built environment, and immersive travel design, among other topical matters. We also capture the thoughts of five of our architects, who reflect on life, work, mentoring, and more.

With rents rising across the country, the cost of housing has reached a crisis level in the United States. Eleven million people in our nation are seeing more than 50 percent of their paychecks swallowed up by rent. Read about how Perkins Eastman is addressing the problem with affordable housing designed to be sustainable, resilient, and, most important, a socially beneficial catalyst (đź”—).

Designing international schools around the world, a fundamental part of Perkins Eastman’s K-12 practice, provides a platform to develop and implement new ideas, which often find a home in our domestic school designs too (🔗).

Earlier this year, we sponsored a Metropolis Think Tank panel discussion on how architectural firms can better integrate equity into our practices and processes (đź”—). We also implemented our inaugural De-Carb Design Competition to challenge our architects to radically reduce the carbon in the buildings we design (đź”—).

With strategic thinking from conception through completion of a project and beyond, Perkins Eastman often proposes options for clients they had not considered with benefits they had not expected (đź”—). The firm did just that with Collection 14. When our client asked us to design two separate multifamily buildings on a single block, our site analysis demonstrated that redeveloping the entire block would make a more meaningful impact on its historic neighborhood in Washington, DC.

Learn more about Collection 14 in “Project Scrapbook” (🔗), one of three regular stories we’re debuting in this issue. “Studio Spotlight,” which focuses on one of our 24 studios, is another. In its first installment, meet a fascinating mix of people in our Dubai studio, where our staff of 11 PEople represent 11 different nationalities and speak 10 languages (🔗). The third is “Gallery,” a visual essay series launched with a collection of exciting artworks installed in the public spaces of recent projects (🔗).

After three years of COVID-19 confinement, people are ready to spread their wings and travel again, but now they seek hotels offering authentic, immersive designs that respond to the culture and context of their destinations (đź”—). To close our issue, a handful of architects share their inspirations, aspirations, and personal fun facts—imagine graduating high school with a class of nine (đź”—). We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed creating it.

The Communications Team


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EDITOR IN CHIEF
TRISH DONNALLY

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
ABBY BUSSEL

CONTRIBUTORS
EMILY BAMFORD
SHAWN BASLER
JENNICA DEELY
MELISSA NOSAL
JENNIFER SERGENT
ALISA SHEV

EDITORIAL DESIGNER
BROOKE SULLIVAN

GRAPHIC DESIGN EDITOR
KIM RADER

PHOTO EDITOR
SARAH MECHLING




The cover, designed by Kim Rader, is inspired by Cedar Crossing, a transit-oriented affordable housing complex in Seattle, WA, designed by VIA—A Perkins Eastman Studio. Rader utilized Midjourney to create her distinctive illustration.