Emily Pierson-Brown: EFA 2024 Design Champion

Meet 2024 EFA Design Champion Emily Pierson-Brown, associate principal at Perkins Eastman (Pittsburgh).
Published: October 24, 2024
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Emily Pierson-Brown, AIA, AICP, LEED GREEN ASSOCIATE, Associate Principal, Perkins Eastman (Pittsburgh)

Joining Perkins Eastman’s Pittsburgh office in 2016, Emily Pierson-Brown has spent most of her career advocating for inclusive senior living communities.

Through her own research on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and belonging in senior living, she developed a new tool for design teams and owners/operators of senior living communities called “Diagram of Belonging,” which identifies potential barriers based on unconscious and conscious biases and supports planning solutions to break down those barriers in design.

The tool can help support understanding between clients and project teams to deliver better spatial and operational outcomes, with the potential to transform environments for seniors.

She has put these ideas and processes to work in senior living projects such as Heritage Community of Kalamazoo in Kalamazoo, Mich., where she developed a wellness master plan that embodies the client’s goal of equitable health access and outcomes for residents.

Pierson-Brown led the project team to evaluate existing outcomes in the community’s independent living, assisted living, long-term care, and memory care neighborhoods, as well as the quality of outdoor spaces. This research included a one-day workshop with residents, staff, and leadership, and resulted in a master plan that is now being implemented.

Through the stakeholder conversations and site analysis, the team discovered that though there were lovely and thoughtfully organized spaces throughout the campus that supported wellness, they were disconnected from one another, and outdoor spaces did not have nearby companion indoor spaces to bridge those connections.

Wellness for staff had not been prioritized previously, and equitable access to wellness across levels of care had not been studied. These discoveries allowed the team to suggest a three-phase series of implementation recommendations that would increase the wellness outcomes for residents and staff across the community.

In 2022, Pierson-Brown was selected by the firm’s executive committee as the inaugural People Culture manager, a role that enables her to champion building relationships across differences, improving communications, and developing a stronger sense of belonging within organizations and project teams.

This past year, she also participated in the Longevity + Inclusion Alliance Fellows Program, a learning and development program for DEI leaders and forward thinkers in the industry. Through her vision, concepts, and projects, Pierson-Brown is helping change the conversations about inclusivity in design.

To read more about EFA‘s 2024 Design Champions, go here.

Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series