The places you
move through every
day are shaping your
social life
I'm an architect and researcher who has spent two decades studying why some places make connection feel easy — and others make it feel impossible. This is where I translate that science into something anyone can use.
Can architecture impact our capacity for connection?
The places of our lives shape how we connect one another. Everyday environments can make loneliness and isolation the default feel natural — or unnecessarily difficult —through the conditions they create.
Peavey’s TEDx Deep Ellum talk shows how design can support social connection. She provides an evidence-based framework for how to design for social health. Peavey’s report, How the Built Environment Can Foster Social Health, translates research into actionable design guidance for any space.
I study what places do to people — and why it matters more than we think.
I'm an architect and researcher working at the intersection of environmental psychology, public health, and neuroscience — studying how everyday environments quietly shape our capacity to connect, relate, and belong.
My work translates evidence into practical design insights: how to make places that help people feel safer, more supported, and better able to engage with those around them. I come to this as a facilitator, practitioner, strategic advisor, and author.
I serve as Principal and SVP at HKS, write the column Designed for Happiness for Psychology Today, and host the podcast Shared Space.
Sharing the message.
City Design for Social Health
Erin talks with National Geographic about how small changes in our neighborhoods can make a big difference in how connected we feel.
Places that Cultivate Connection
Erin joins the BBC Radio 4 to discuss the role of the built environment in fostering social connection and healing loneliness.
Environmental Design for Community Connection
The built environment can be an antidote to loneliness and isolation, and uplift mental, physical, and social well-being.
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Join thousands of designers, researchers, and curious readers who want to understand how the places around them are shaping their social lives — and what science says they can do about it.
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The science of how your environment shapes your social life — made readable for anyone, not just researchers.
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Essays, columns, and features on design, connection, and the everyday places that shape how we relate.
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New conversations with designers, researchers, and thinkers exploring how architecture shapes human connection.
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