071: Erin Pellegrino: Rethinking How Architects Work by “Challenging the Brief”

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Nov 3

Written By Caitlin Brady

Erin Pellegrino is a strategist, designer, and registered architect. Through Matter, her design and fabrication studio, she transforms visionary concepts into extraordinary spaces, objects, and experiences.

Erin is the co-founder of Out of Architecture, a career resource community and talent services agency, and co-author of ‘Out of Architecture: The Value of Architects Beyond Traditional Practice’ (Routledge, 2022). Her commitment to expanding design’s impact extends to academia, where she has taught at Harvard, Cornell, The New School, CUNY, and NJIT. At NJIT she co-leads the design/build program focusing on public interest design.

Her work has earned global recognition, including an Autodesk BuildSpace Fellowship, AIA New England Design Honor Award, Core77 Design Award in Built Environment, two Architizer A-plus awards, a Paul M. Heffernan International Fellowship, and a nomination for the EU Mies Van der Rohe Award. She holds an M.Arch II from Harvard Graduate School of Design, a B.Arch from Cornell University, and an MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology.

We talk about:

- How Erin built a multidimensional career across architecture, academia, and entrepreneurship.

- She reflects on early lessons from working with Tod Williams Billie Tsien and how her in-office experience shaped her decision to question a typical path in architecture and eventually carve her own path.

- Erin explains how Out of Architecture blossomed from conversations about burnout and evolved over a series of secret coaching calls to expand into publishing a book, launching a podcast, and creating a global platform for architects seeking greater balance and fulfillment.

- We critique the profession’s lack of transparency regarding labor and pay and Erin lists a few practices she would change.

- In closing, Erin reminds architects that their power lies in their relationships between people, materials, and spaces.

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Connect with Erin:

⁠Out of Architecture.⁠

⁠Matter.⁠

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