Perkins Eastman

Perkins Eastman is an architecture, interiors and planning firm founded in New York in 1981. Its New York studio sits just off Union Square with about 320 people, and the firm runs 26 studios across the U.S. and abroad, from Washington, D.C., Chicago and Dallas to Toronto, Dubai and Singapore. Its practice areas run from senior living, healthcare, K-12 and higher education to office, hospitality, large mixed-use, transportation and government work. Affiliated specialty studios add landscape architecture, planning and economic analysis. In Alexandria, Virginia, Perkins Eastman is the architect for Goodwin House Seminary Road, a pair of high-rise senior living towers with 257 units that Goodwin Living broke ground on Oct. 7, 2026, with Clark Construction as general contractor.

The firm’s name took a decade to settle. Brad Perkins and Mary-Jean Eastman began the practice in 1981 in partnership with Eli Attia, as Attia & Perkins. Perkins bought out Attia’s interest between 1983 and 1985 and renamed it Bradford Perkins & Associates; it became Perkins Geddis Eastman after Barbara Geddis joined as a partner in 1985, and Perkins Eastman in 1991 when Geddis stepped down. The family lineage runs back further still, to 1897, when Brad Perkins’s grandfather Dwight Heald Perkins started a separate architecture firm.

Growth came largely through merger rather than organic hiring. The first regional office opened in Pittsburgh in 1994 and the first international studio in Toronto in 1999. Charlotte and Chicago followed in 2001, through a MedArc merger and the acquisition of OWP/P’s senior living group. Oakland and Shanghai came in 2005, Boston and Dubai in 2007, Mumbai and Guayaquil in 2008. The 2011 merger with Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn formed the combined Washington, D.C. office. Los Angeles arrived in 2015 via the LBL merger, Dallas in 2016 through ForrestPerkins, Costa Mesa and a second Oakland presence in 2018 through Dougherty & Dougherty, Raleigh in 2020, Austin, Providence, Seattle and Vancouver in 2021, and Singapore and Philadelphia in 2022. Headcount tracked that curve: about 40 staff in 1981, 395 by 2001, 500 by 2011 and 1,100-plus today.

Sustainability has a documented record rather than a statement. The Pittsburgh Children’s Museum became the firm’s first LEED-certified project in 2006; it signed the AIA 2030 Challenge in 2014; Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. earned LEED Platinum in 2015; and a Sustainability Resolution launched in 2022.

Research is a separate line of work. The firm won the AIA College of Fellows’ Latrobe Prize in 2019, which carried a $100,000 grant, and published the resulting study on school modernisation in 2024.

Six affiliated specialty studios extend the offer: BFJ Planning, RGR Landscape, ForrestPerkins, MEIS Design Studio, Frank Design and Urbanomics, covering planning, landscape, hospitality interiors, sports venues and economic analysis.