Karen Stonely, AIA LEED AP

Karen Stonely, AIA LEED AP, began her career in independent practice in New York and Maryland in 1991, developing an extensive catalog of residential and commercial projects while concurrently studying at the Urban Glass Workshop in Brooklyn, New York. Her fabrications are privately collected and are a part of the permanent collection at Rice University, where she obtained her Bachelor of Art and Bachelor of Architecture, and the Garrison Forest School. From Rice University, Karen was also was awarded the Edward B. Arrants Medal and inducted into the Tau Sigma Delta Society. Karen interned at Robert A.M. Stern Architects (1990-91) and illustrated professionally before founding SPAN with Peter Pelsinski in 1995. 

Karen's expertise lays in her design and management skills, business acumen, mentoring skills, flexibility, and her broad ranging curiosity about how both the built and phenomenal shape the human experience. A regular speaker at Dwell on Design and the Architectural Digest Home Show, Karen has been a juror for annual awards for the Architectural League of New York, the Architect’s Newspaper and CC&G.  

Ms. Stonely has led a parallel career in public service and leads the studio’s annual philanthropic endeavors, including the participation in the Kips Bay Boys and Girl’s Club Design Showroom and the office for the NY Council for the Humanities pro bono. 

Having served two terms as the Vice President of the civic charity OpenHouseNewYork she now remains on the board. Karen is a member of the Charlie Byrd Society at The Mainstay Cultural Foundation, and serves as VP of Community Build and Relations at The Beacon School. She was on the initial Advisory Committee of NYC’s Downtown Alliances “Volume-Voices of Lower Manhattan” after 9/11, VP of The Bindery Condominium Association for 11 years, participated in the Mentor Program at the NJ School of Architecture, on the Development Committee for the Architectural League of New York, and was a founding chair of the “Friends Committee” for the Design Trust for Public Space. In 2012, Ms. Stonely took on the most personal of her endeavors and founded LAAB (Life as a Brain) to sustain rare neurological research and support.  

Peter Pelsinski, AIA LEED AP

Principal Peter Pelsinski, AIA LEED AP, is one of the youngest recipients of the prestigious Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects Forum. Peter graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, where he received the Susannah Underwood Scholarship, the Pella Thesis Prize for outstanding design, and was a finalist for the SOM Traveling Fellowship. Prior to Co-Founding SPAN, Peter interned at Diller Scofidio Architects and Michael Graves, and was the lead designer of the residential and development practice for developer Peter Moore.

Peter’s expertise lays in his design, collaboration and fabrication skills, wide ranging academic expertise, boundless determination, and his pursuit to explore, experience and create within our built and natural world. 

He is a founding member of the award-winning collaborative Operatives (1991-1996, now LTL), leading multiple urban competitions and designing and fabricating exhibitions, including “The Pull of Beauty” exhibition with curator Kiki Smith, and “Slip Space” curated by Mark Wigley. He is the designer of “Metroscopes,” the award-winning public art installation in the UMSL South station in the St Louis light rail system. 

Peter is deeply invested in the advance of architectural education. He is currently an adjunct professor at Princeton University and runs the integrated building design seminar and laboratory. He coordinated a reconstruction-focused traveling studio between the New Jersey Institute of Technology School of Architecture and the schools of architecture at Poznan and Warsaw Universities, comparing the building site of the WTC with post-war sites in Berlin, Warsaw and Poznan.   

Like Karen, Peter is a member of the Charlie Byrd Society at The Mainstay Cultural Foundation and was a founding chair of the Friends Committee for the Design Trust for Public Space. He is an invited guest on many architectural juries and reviews, and he frequently lectures about SPAN’s work publicly. 

Peter is a recipient of the American Institute of Architects Henry Adams Medal.