Take 5: Conversations with PEople

Your work often focuses on the public realm and cultural and arts buildings. Which projects have been the most challenging?

Every project presents its own challenges—that’s the nature of our profession. Recently, we submitted the Tbilisi Sea Master Plan, a transformative vision for a nearly 1,200-acre site surrounding a reservoir in Tbilisi, Georgia. The plan demanded a delicate balance: preserving the site’s natural beauty while advancing its economic, developmental, and sustainable potential. This project carries personal significance for me. Fifteen years ago, I began my career in Georgia, where my first professional contributions were to cultural and large-scale architectural projects including the construction of the Georgian Parliament Building and Rike Park. Returning to a place that profoundly influenced my architectural journey has been deeply rewarding.

What are you working on as a board member of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU), an NGO that promotes resilient design in urban planning?

I was elected to the board in 2024, but I have been collaborating with the organization for years as a research affiliate for the Columbia Climate School Center for Sustainable Urban Development. My work focuses on two initiatives: through CSU Green Cities, I help organize webinars and forums to foster dialogue among global leaders in urbanization and sustainability; with Youth+UN, I help create opportunities for young people to engage in global urban processes.

As a fellow in the Urban Design Forum’s 2024 “Big Swings” Global Exchange program, what have you learned from your peers?

Participating in this program has been transformative. The initiative unites 48 emerging leaders in New York City—architects, planners, lawyers, and policymakers, among others, with diverse perspectives—to address the city’s housing crisis. Each month, our peer-led events delve into pressing challenges, offering firsthand insights into complex issues. For example, the “Cutting Red Tape” session featured a site visit to an office-to-residential conversion. Discussions on migration, guided by the Mayor’s Office of Policy & Planning, illuminated innovative strategies for integrating new arrivals. And case studies demonstrated sustainable approaches to the preservation of affordable housing. These sessions bring together a diverse range of voices and serve as an invaluable learning experience.

Last year, you served as a judge for the Salvadori Center’s annual design charrette in New York. What do you enjoy about working with elementary and middle school students?

It’s incredibly satisfying to engage with kids and see their uninhibited approach to design. The charrette taught them to measure dimensions, organize a house layout, draw plans, and create paper models. Their creativity, free from codes and constraints, was inspiring—some of their models were truly remarkable!

What do you seek to instill in your architecture students at Pratt Institute and the New York Institute of Technology?

I want my students to learn critical thinking and how to analyze and uncover cities’ complex layers of challenges and opportunities, while also discovering their own voices—whether through writing, drawing, or presenting—around issues such as inequality or accessibility. My course serves as a laboratory where students apply new concepts, such as Sustainable Development Goals, to real-world scenarios.

You have said architecture can serve as practical poetry. How do you apply this philosophy to housing?

My favorite poets—William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, and Matsuo Bashō—have a wonderful economy of words, capturing so much with so little. This is what I strive to accomplish with my work: impactful design through simple means. The Cline in Seattle is a great example. Its simple theme of faceting, derived from the existing context, became a vehicle for directing views, shaping indoor and outdoor space, and creating texture and shadow on the façade.

What are the current themes in residential design, and what do you predict for the future?

Remote work is a significant driver of both unit and amenity design, including dens, office nooks, and coworking spaces. For a current project, dens are strategically placed to become extensions of bedrooms, while also having ample access to daylight—an idea we nicked from the great work our Dallas studio is doing.

We are also seeing an increased awareness of the urgent need for plentiful affordable housing. This is sparking new and creative approaches to building in unexpected places. Churches and community centers, for example, are considering how they can add residential density to underutilized sites.

As a member of our Futures Council, a cohort of emerging leaders who work to build a better Perkins Eastman, what are your goals?

My core goal is to foster a workplace where people are happy, fulfilled, and take pride in producing work of the highest caliber. I’m particularly interested in how our approaches to design and collaboration work toward that goal. I believe we are all designers, and design processes that meaningfully engage with the full spectrum of the project team produce the best results. Accomplishing this is complicated by the hybrid office policy we adopted coming out of the pandemic. Developing ways to simultaneously maintain this flexibility (it’s as popular with our staff as it is among the tenants our residential clients seek to attract) and the quality of our designs is top of mind.

How does the Pacific Northwest region—its landscape and climate—influence your work?

It’s hard not to love the Pacific Northwest. It is one of the most naturally stunning places on the planet, and I’m grateful I get to live here. This context inspires us to use materials that are evocative of the landscape and have an inherent character and texture, such as wood, weathering steel, and board-formed concrete. On a more serious note, the climate is changing. Summers are getting hotter, winters are getting wetter, and we are making our buildings more resilient.

What advice do you give to aspiring architects interested in working at a large practice like ours?

Students and new graduates can feel intimidated by the size of a practice like ours—I did. I tell them Perkins Eastman is large, but it’s made up of real people who are engaged, passionate, and incredibly knowledgeable, and our diversity creates remarkable opportunities. Dive in, get exposure to everything firms like ours have to offer, and start to chart your own unique path. N