Agatha Vastakis Pestilli

Agatha Vastakis Pestilli, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

Agatha had a passion for art and drawing in high school. “At family gatherings I’d be in the corner sketching my relatives interacting with one another, or at other times I would draw the landscape I could see looking out of a window,” she says. “I also needed to know how things were put together, and the details of how they were designed.”

Deciding that architecture was a practical outlet for her creative impulses, Agatha pursued a bachelor's degrees in both architecture building sciences (with a minor in business management) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her college thesis focused on furniture design for tight living spaces, and she represented RPI in a furniture design/build competition. In a woodshop class, she also designed a wood-slated, undulating lounge chair that looked like a sure cure for insomnia? (it was comfy).

After stints with architectural firms in Connecticut, New York City, and Washington D.C., Agatha joined Centerbrook in 2003 and has served on design teams for projects on all three campuses of Quinnipiac University. She was project manager for its Health Professions Center, which includes a new medical school that is focusing on primary care. She honed her academic and laboratory design skills working on the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. Her recent work includes designs for the Goodspeed Opera House, Springfield College and continued projects at Quinnipiac. She was named an associate principal in 2019.

“Architecture is a joy,” she insists. “I’m always learning something new and tapping into things that interest me, like medicine, science, and craftsmanship. Every job presents new challenges, multiple tasks, and there are opportunities to work with experts in various specialties, all collaborating toward one goal. It’s incredibly rewarding when you see people using the spaces and the buildings that you have created.”

  • Centerbrook Travel Grant recipient, Valencia, Spain
  • Like sports, hiking, travel, fluent in Greek