Healthier, Happier, and More Connected: HKS's Health & Well-Being Design Leader Erin Peavey on Caring and Showing up for Others

Erin Peavey, AIA is the Health and Well-Being Design Leader at global design firm HKS. An architect, researcher, and communicator, she integrates research and practice to design for health, combat loneliness, and foster resilience. Erin gives back to her community as a keynote speaker, writer, coach, and board member.

An Industry Scholar for Cornell’s Institute for Healthy Futures, she has also served as Research Chair for the Academy of Architecture for Health Foundation for nearly a decade. Erin’s work on health and place has been featured in Psychology Today, TEDx, SXSW, Metropolis, NPR/KERA, Architect Magazine, Healthline, and her own podcast Shared Space. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, Erin talks about her multi-faceted focus on designing for mental health and the importance of communications in architecture, advising those just starting their careers to stay curious.

JG: Tell me about your foundational years — where did you grow up and what did you like to do as a kid?

EP: I grew up in Austin, Texas; and I like to think I made Austin proud by “keeping it weird,” which is our motto. I loved to draw, read, swim, and go on long walks and just think. I would grab my brother’s old-school bright yellow Walkman CD player, listen to Abbey Road on loop roaming about the neighborhood solo.

Growing up I was fascinated by people; how we interact with one another. I studied that even as a small child – trying to understand the world. I was — and let’s be honest, still am — a sensitive kid. I joke that I am a canary in a coal mine, sensitive to physical, emotional, or social stimuli. I only recently found out that there are about fifteen to twenty percent of people who are just born with increased sensitivity, such that they are called “highly sensitive people '' or HSPs. Fun fact - this same trait is believed to exist in at least 100 other species. I am certainly an HSP, and it got me in trouble a lot as a little kid. I had so many big feelings, and that was hard for people, and in many ways it still is.

I was raised by an amazing single mother, in a family that valued learning and education as a central tenant. So much so, that my mother, a special education teacher when we were young, got her second masters and transitioned to counseling when we were teenagers. She showed by example grit, determination, and following her own arrow — and I am deeply grateful for that.

Even though I didn’t live with my father for most of my life, we have a close bond. He is a primary care physician working with people without insurance, and the model my mother and he set for us was one deeply embedded in service to others. Before I had memory, I knew that service would be the focus of any future career.

I know your background is in both psychology and architecture. Tell me about this.

My first psychology class was when I was in high school — it was like seeing the world in three-dimensions for the first time! I started to understand foundational things about myself and the world. At the time, I was lucky enough to dual enroll in the local community college and take sociology and criminology, and explore my passions for social justice. But it wasn’t until I was at Loyola New Orleans, in a course called environmental psychology that my world really opened up and my path to my future became clearer. In that class, I discovered how the built worlds around shape how we think, feel, and behave. That architecture, place, design, urban planning, signage — all of it — are symbols of what we care about, and shape how we see ourselves and others.

I was hooked! At the end of the semester, I applied to architecture schools, to dual enroll in architecture and psychology. I had the amazingly good fortune to end up at Texas A&M, where I was exposed to amazing researchers, practitioners, and life changing mentors in design for health.

Peavey and the HKS pro-bono team worked with Floral Farms neighbors at the former location of the toxic pile of shingles in their back yards, referred to as Shingle Mountain. Renderings of Floral Farms Park by HKS pro-bono team.

Erin and her team presenting Floral Farms, an HKS project. Courtesy of Erin Peavey. (Placeholder Caption)(Placeholder caption)

How did you get your start in working in architecture?

My first job in architecture was at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Austin, where I was a summer intern after my first year of architecture school. I mostly helped with fundraising, organizing, and meetings.

Then, when I graduated three years later, my path circled back to the AIA there. I decided to move back to Austin, ignoring other offers, so I could be close to my mother who was very sick. I helped care for her through the first phases of surgery, chemo, radiation, and all that came with it. It only made my passion for working in design for health and healthcare all that much stronger; to see everything that she was going through, to hear her stories, and to go through them by her side — I saw how the built environment could support her journey or work against her healing.

This is probably what gave me the audacity to start the AIA Austin chapter of the Architecture for Health Knowledge Community when I was in my early 20s. I was so hungry for others passionate about design for health, and believed in the power of creating a shared place where people could come together to learn, network, and help make positive changes locally. At the time, in 2008, Austin looked different, much less developed, and it was so rewarding to get to bring people together for this common goal.

How did you eventually get to HKS?

In 2016, I was taking a pause from a PhD program in Nursing and Health Innovation and considering my future. I was talking with an old friend and collaborator, Dr. Upali Nanda, who had recently become HKS’s Director of Research. I was lucky enough that she recruited me as a Visiting Scholar that summer to focus on point-of-decision design around campuses with an AIA Upjohn Research Grant.

From there, I’ve been a lot of places within HKS — working on master planning and operational processes as a part of our advisory and consulting group, as the project lead on our pro-bono Floral Farms project in South Dallas, and helping thinkers from different parts of the firm connect, spread good ideas, and help lessons learned not be lost.

“Something inside me still lights up when I think about how to use the built environment to love and care for people, not just my family, but for people I might never meet, and the people that care for them.”

— Erin Peavey

What are you focused on these days?

I’ve been a consultant, an architect, medical planner, researcher, and storyteller. In my new role, I am the Health and Well-Being Design Leader for our community sector that makes up the majority of our practice.

HKS recognizes that people and communities around the globe are struggling with their health and well-being, feeling disconnected and overwhelmed. This role elevates the voices of the community as a critical part of the design process and uses a cross-sector approach to create human-centered solutions that provide buildings, spaces, and communities that foster human health and well-being. Part of how we do this is to collaborate and translate between research, design, and everyday people to better understand complex topics in simple and interesting ways that can be applied to practice.

Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you manage through perceived disappointments or setbacks?

For me, I think my biggest challenge was licensure. I have a non-traditional career path, so what licensure looked like for me was naturally going to be different. I expected that and prepared for it. But what I couldn't expect was that, as I worked through my final exams, it would be at the same time that my mother was dying, and that I was finding out that I was pregnant.

There are no words for how hard it was to be four months pregnant, holding her hand as we said goodbye for the last time, and then pushing it all down because there was a ticking clock of the architecture exam schedule that didn’t care about my humanity.

I’m so sorry Erin.

I was in mourning, having to show up not only for work, but then for every night, morning, and weekend studying. To take long exams when you're pregnant is hard. Your body's different, you're hungry all the time, and simply put, you’re tired from creating life. And similarly, when you're in mourning, it's hard to eat, it's hard to sleep, and it's hard to think. On my drive to each exam, I would cry in between loudly belting out Maggie Rogers at full blast, windows rolled down, trying to let out all of the big emotions and focus on the task at hand.

Then, on my final exam, I failed twice; once when I was six months pregnant, once when I was eight months pregnant; and then finally I passed fourteen days from my clock expiring, which happened to also be the last day of my maternity leave. What this timeline means is that I had zero time to feel, to mourn, or do the traditional bonding things with my baby. I was reading her flashcards as if they were play toys. I like to think maybe it helped her learn more about HVAC than your typical two-month-old.

But, what I'll never forget is that after I failed the second time, and was drive-crying my way home — it’s a skill — my mom's words came back to me. “Erin, you’ve done all you can on your own, and you need a tutor.” I only wish this would have occurred to me sooner. I needed to really understand the subject matter inside out. At the time, I worked in a large firm and I asked numerous people if they would consider mentoring me, and I looked outside of the firm and asked people if I could pay them to coach me, and essentially everyone told me that I didn't need to become an architect because I did research, and that I was wasting my time, and that I needed to focus on my baby.

It was so heartbreaking to see what people do to moms. But I had watched my own single mother grit through years of late-night schooling after her full-time job as a teacher to become the counselor she was. I was not going to be deterred, I was going to model that same determination for my daughter; and I did.

The man that at long last agreed to mentor me, Jeff LaRue, was truly an angel in my life that I will never forget. He is a Principal and technical leader at HKS, but more than anything he is a natural born mentor, and my personal hero. Just weeks after giving birth, I was up in the office being coached by him, going through wall details, and asking questions. He even shared his Girl Scout cookies with me — what a class act!

Keynote at AIA Colorado on Architecture to Catalyzing Connection.

TEDx Deep Ellum talk, “Can Design Heal Loneliness.”

If you need permission to ask for help, to not carry it all on your own shoulders, here is your permission slip! We need each other. Show up for others. Let others show up for you. Sometimes those will be the same people, but sometimes we pay it forward to help another in need. Be the change you want to see.

What have you also learned in the last six months?

Recently, I have seen a public awakening around the importance of mental and social health in our lives, and increased recognition of the ways that the built environment shapes our internal landscape. The culmination of the last few years brought to the forefront — and worsened — our existing mental health crisis. We see one in four American adults suffer with a diagnosed mental disorder in a given year, with high percentages of anxiety and depression. This was true prior to the pandemic, but it has only worsened since then. And yet, we do not take into consideration this truth when we plan our cities, our buildings, and communities — and when we engage, both with each other, with the communities we serve, and with ourselves.

In the same way that many poor physical health outcomes spurred the creation and implementation of policies around active design, I would love to see that same focus around what it means to be mentally and socially well. We need to be creating design guidelines that build on the expanding research around healthy buildings and healthy nervous systems. I think WELL is making strides in that direction, and hope to see more do so. In this vein, it’s been such a joy working with the Trauma Informed Design Society recently. They and others in that area are really pushing to talk about and normalize more conversations around mental health, trauma, triggers, and populations that continue to suffer and how we can serve them best.

That’s amazing. Thank you for sharing. Who else are you admiring now and why?

I told myself I would only give you authentic answers, and while there are so many people I admire – but, if I had to choose one person, it would be my daughter – Elena. She is sassy and smart, very sensitive, she has this passion and intensity for life that ignites something dormant and playful in me. Being her mom has taught me so much about what it is to be human – and to be female in this world.

As a society – and let’s be honest, a primarily male-dominant perspective – we have long treated emotions as something to overcome. Something not to bring into meetings. And I get it – emotions are messy and hard; but what science is teaching us is that emotions are primary. We are emotional beings having thoughts, not thinking beings having emotions. So often we look for a “non-emotional” solution; but our bodies have so much to teach us, each emotion is created for us trying to make sense of our bodily sensations in relation to the world around us.

I see that in my daughter – how she is learning to try and classify, put words and reasons to emotions to understand herself. As I help her navigate her world, Elena reminds me to tune into my own intuition, my body’s knowing underneath the noise. That is a lesson we can all use – to tune into your still quiet voice below the cacophony that our world brings.

“In the same way that many poor physical health outcomes spurred the creation and implementation of policies around active design, I would love to see that same focus around what it means to be mentally and socially well. We need to be creating design guidelines that build on the expanding research around healthy buildings and healthy nervous systems.”

— Erin Peavey

What is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission? And, what does success in that look like to you?

My core mission is to leverage the power of the built environment to make us healthier, happier, and more connected. For most of my life success looked like having a positive impact on the world — through advocating for vulnerable populations through a combination of research evidence and design implementation. And that is still true, but a few years ago, I added what was a very critical component — the piece that included enjoying my life.

I was lucky enough to have friends and a husband that showed me I was more than just a machine that accomplished things, and unlucky enough to have a series of health challenges that made it impossible to “just push through”. In some ways this is what it took to help me add my own well-being to my definition of success.

I’ve also added something important to the mix — science communications, or clarifying the complexity so that it can be understood and implemented. It wasn’t until years into my career that I really got to lean into communications more - thought my role at HKS, my Shared Space podcast, and speaking on a national and global scale, through keynotes, SXSW, TEDx - all of those allowed me to lean into communications more, and it has been such a gift, and an area I hope to always be growing in.

I hope the impact I leave is to help people understand and love themselves more fully, show up for others even when it is hard, and create places that reflect that compassion – in the design process and the ultimate outcome.

Engaging with Cook Children’s staff as a part of full-scale mock-up facilitation for their new building.

At Waco’s Community Health Fair, listening to community members on their hopes for the new Waco Family Medicine clinic.

Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?

Man, this is a hard one. There are four fundamental pieces of advice that I’ll share. First, stay curious. Every decision is an experiment, and failure or success is just a part of learning what works and doesn’t. Then, connect with others. Deep, genuine human relationships are what it is all about. We are wired for connection, and this is why loneliness literally hurts. Connection with others will help weather life’s storms — from getting through a breakup, a setback, or navigating the next stage in our careers.

Third, seek out people who champion you, and don’t forget it is a two-way street. When you’re lucky enough to have an amazing champion, mentor, or leader — let them know. And no matter how young you are, you can always be a champion for others and for causes that matter to you.

Finally, the world will pull you in a million directions, and countless competing expectations; it is up to you to continually keep your internal compass and remember your north star even when things get dark. I do this through a lot of journaling, processing with friends, my amazing husband, trying things that make me excited to get out of bed in the morning even if they don’t have an instant “return” — the return is moving forward and growing.

This advice is consistent for men and women – but for women, I would riff on what Ruth Bader Ginsburg says is the best marriage advice she received “In every good [career] it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.” Don’t confuse unkind words with your actual value. Understand that people often say unkind things when they are feeling vulnerable or insecure, and it often has nothing to do with you. There are loads of data that show, as women move into positions of power, there is often backlash; whenever possible, remember you are worthy of good things, of creating them and receiving them.