Eric Peterson

AIA

Senior Project Architect

At SMMA

  • Eric is a project architect with over 20 years' experience focusing on corporate and commercial, high technology, office, and institutional facilities
  • Coordinates all disciplines throughout the research, design, and permitting processes
  • Specializes in creating environmentally responsible, modern designs that reflect the way we live today; especially enjoys the challenge of blending these designs in New England, with its historic architectural context
  • Harnesses his methodical and research-oriented approach to create and inspire good design
  • Mentors his SMMA colleagues within project and social settings, including the firm’s Toastmasters Club

Problem Solving through Drawing 

 Knowing that design is an iterative process, Eric finds drawing to be invaluable. "We don’t really understand the problems—or the opportunities—until we draw them," Eric explains. 

 

He especially enjoys working on projects that involve complex geometry, and working through the challenges that this complexity brings. For example, Eric’s design for the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory involved a multi-story winter garden with a glass curtain wall and interior spiraling ramps. The garden was constructed on top of an existing structure, and was bisected by a building expansion joint. Through “multiple iterations of drawings,” Eric sorted out the project’s different components to arrive at the right design solution.

Impactful Design 

“I take special pride in the Doc’s Place Café addition to Draper Labs’ Duffy Building,” says Eric. “It livens up the exterior and interior of a research building, and provides a pleasant gathering place for meals and informal collaboration among the researchers. We succeeded in making a very large improvement to their work environment with a very small addition.”