Her Story
About elpida
Elpida Peristeropoulou is a Greek architect, designer, and educator who has practiced for 15 years in the United States and a couple of years in Italy. After being born and raised in Greece, she moved to Italy to study architecture and later relocated to the United States. She works at a firm she has assisted in building and finds reward in designing single-family homes that improve clients' daily lives. Peristeropoulou attributes her perspective to traveling the world, studying and practicing in multiple countries, and embracing the unknown to gain a worldly view essential to creative fields. Outside her practice, she has spent five years developing an architecture design class for children at the Greek schools of Boston and the school her children attend, aiming to teach Greek language, culture, and design problem-solving to the next generation.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with elpida
01What do you attribute your success to?
I feel like it's an immense sense of gratitude and a very rewarding feeling to know that I've traveled the world, I went to study in different countries, I practiced architecture in a different country than the one I was born, in a different country than the one I was educated. Being able to take the risk to leave behind everything that is known and move forward to something that is more unknown, and open your views to see how things happen in other parts of the world. The worldly view of things can be applied to so many things, but in specificity to the creative fields, I think it's something mandatory.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
You need to continue educating yourself and staying informed and relevant, and to find the place that you feel you can contribute the most. It doesn't mean that it's the thing that you are the best at or you love the most, it's the thing that you could see that can contribute to other people's lives. Sometimes I find myself contemplating oh I wish I was designing a library or a museum or a university but I'm designing a single family home and I think that gives you the same level of reward and accomplishment to help make someone's life better.
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