At PeopleDem property we believe in celebrating our community by spotlighting black excellence in property. Today we are celebrating Pascale Sablan.
Pascale is a visionary architect renowned for her transformative impact on the built environment and her dedication to addressing disparities within the architectural profession. She founded The Third Office and Beyond the Built Environment and has led and contributed to internationally recognised projects that shape cities through cultural infrastructure, civic investment, and community-centred design. Pascale is the author of GREATNESS and the recipient of the 2021 AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. Award. She was also elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in 2021. She continues to lecture at national and international institutions, including the United Nations and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her influence extends globally, with lectures at esteemed institutions such as the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the United Nations, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, and Forbes, and she has been recognised by Oprah's Future Rising platform.
Pascale is the eldest daughter of Haitian immigrants and grew up in Queens, New York. The area where she lived was predominantly Caribbean, and most of her classmates were African American. She later attended an all-girls Catholic high school, where she learned about numerous incredible women. This experience reinforced the belief that she could change the world as a woman and highlighted the contributions she could make in that space. However, it was also a challenging academic experience. She subsequently pursued her bachelor's degree at Pratt Institute, where she encountered racism. In an interview, she recalled, "During my first or second week of architecture at Pratt, a professor asked me and another classmate to stand, and he said these two will never become architects because they are black and because they are women."
Despite these challenges, Pascale graduated from Pratt Institute. Following her mother's advice, she then attended Columbia University to pursue a master's degree in Advanced Architectural Design.
Pascale's professional career began while she was still at university, where she worked as a designer. Her career was further developed at AARRIS Architects, where she spent three years working on New York City's first monument commemorating the history of Black slavery, the African Burial Ground National Monument. This memorial honours the memory and remains of an estimated 15,000 enslaved and free Africans who were interred at the burial ground during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
After graduating, Pascale joined FXFOWLE Architects, where she worked for a decade in the International Studio. During this time, she developed sustainable and dynamic architectural designs across the world, including in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, Azerbaijan, and Japan. Her projects received significant recognition and honours from the architectural community and were featured in international publications and television programmes. Projects such as the Museum of the Built Environment and The Greater Noida Group Housing in India received the MIPIM/Architectural Review Award and were featured on the Discovery Channel and Good Morning America.
In addition to her architectural work, Pascale took on several leadership roles, including serving as the International Studio representative for the Team Green Committee and the United States Green Building Council. She was also passionate about mentoring young designers in high school through the ACE Mentor Program. The programme aims to enlighten high school students about career opportunities in the architecture, construction, and engineering industries through mentoring.
Pascale subsequently worked at S9 Architecture and founded Beyond the Built Environment. This organisation uniquely addresses inequities and disparities within architecture by providing a holistic platform designed to support people at numerous stages of the architectural pipeline. It promotes agency among diverse audiences and advocates for equity in the built environment through an approach Pascale developed called the "Triple E, C" method: Engage, Elevate, Educate, and Collaborate.
Through engagement, the organisation brings diverse audiences together through programmes that promote intellectual discourse and exchange, working towards a more just and equitable built environment. It elevates the identities and contributions of minority architects and designers through exhibitions, curated lectures, and documentaries that demonstrate the value of their built work and its spatial impact. Through education, it provides formal and informal learning opportunities that introduce architecture as a means of bridging gaps in inequality. Finally, it collaborates with community stakeholders and organisations to gather information and amplify opportunities to advocate for equitable and reflectively diverse environments.
After four years at S9 Architecture, Pascale joined Adjaye Associates as a senior associate. She progressed to become Chief Executive Officer of the firm's New York Studio, where she led projects across the Americas. Her leadership bridged design excellence with business strategy, overseeing complex projects while guiding teams, operations, and client relationships on an international scale. She left Adjaye Associates in 2026 and subsequently founded The Third Office.
The Third Office was founded at the intersection of design, business, and leadership, where vision alone is no longer enough. After nearly two decades of leading globally recognised projects and operating at the executive level of an international architectural practice, Pascale identified a critical gap in the industry. Firms, developers, and institutions are increasingly being asked to deliver more complex, high-impact work, often without the integrated strategy, operational clarity, and leadership alignment needed to succeed. The traditional model, in which design, business operations, and project execution function in separate silos, is no longer sustainable.
The Third Office was established to bridge this gap. It operates as a strategic layer between vision and delivery, supporting leaders, teams, and projects in aligning ambition with execution. The organisation advises firms, developers, and institutions on strategy, business development, organisational growth, and project positioning at the intersection of design, development, and impact. Drawing on more than 18 years of experience leading globally recognised civic, cultural, and development projects, it brings expertise in project delivery, executive leadership, operations, and client strategy.
The Third Office supports organisations navigating complex pursuits, strengthening partnerships, aligning teams, and advancing opportunities from vision through execution. It leverages a global network across design, development, philanthropy, government, and cultural sectors to help clients establish relationships and develop strategic collaborations. Its strategic counsel is informed by experience leading business development initiatives, shaping pursuit strategies, securing major commissions, and advancing mission-driven growth. Its services include strategic advisory for civic and cultural initiatives, business development and pursuit strategy, organisational growth and operational alignment, partnership development and stakeholder engagement, development strategy and project team assembly, and equity-centred advisory for the built environment.
Through her work, Pascale has led projects that serve as catalysts for neighbourhood transformation, cultural investment, and economic vitality. She has built relationships that have generated direct invitations to significant project opportunities and partnerships. In addition, she has advanced advocacy initiatives that have elevated more than 1,100 diverse designers globally while expanding access across the profession. The Third Office brings together executive leadership and advocacy to support organisations navigating complexity with clarity and purpose.
Among Pascale's projects is a memorial situated adjacent to the Newton Enslaved Burial Ground, where the remains of 570 West African enslaved people were uncovered through a LiDAR study. The memorial will mark a site of tragedy and trauma, transforming it into a meaningful place of commemoration, remembrance, and connection. Aligning the sacred landscape with ideas of renewal and rebirth, the memorial addresses a traumatic past while celebrating the potential for new futures. Its design draws on African traditions, reflecting the cycle of life from birth to death, with humanity emerging from the Earth and ultimately returning to it. These concepts are expressed and mediated through architecture.
Another significant project is Sycamore & Oak, a community-led development located on Parcel 15 in Congress Heights. This mass-timber structure comprises a 22,000-square-foot Interim Retail Village (IRV), designed primarily to nurture retail and food concepts that originated within the community while providing employment opportunities for local residents. Conceived as an entirely public space, the development introduces a plinth that serves as a focal point for gathering and creates a viewing deck overlooking the various programmes activating the site. These include education centres, retail incubators, outdoor dining areas, and a gathering and performance pavilion.
The structure is open-air, with a distinctive canopy that provides protection from the elements while creating a sense of intimacy, or a "community within community", for those gathered beneath it. The environmental canopy is also designed to collect rainwater and function as an energy-generating surface through photovoltaic panels. By incorporating these features, the infrastructure aims to achieve net-zero performance.
Pascale has also held several influential professional positions and received numerous honours for her contributions to architecture and advocacy. In 2023, she began a two-year term as president of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), becoming the fifth woman to hold this position in the organisation's 52-year history. In 2025, she served on the Professional Practice Commission of the International Union of Architects, also known as the Union Internationale des Architectes (UIA). That same year, she received the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Service from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB).
Her other honours include the Architectural League of New York's Emerging Voices Award and the 2021 AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. Award, both recognising her contributions and advocacy efforts. In 2021, she was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows, becoming the youngest African American to achieve this distinction in the organisation's 167-year history. She also served as a member of the AIA National Secretary's Advisory Committee in 2022.
Throughout her career, Pascale has delivered lectures at colleges and universities across the country and at cultural institutions, including the United Nations and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Through her lectures, professional leadership, and advocacy, she continues to contribute to conversations about architecture, representation, and equity within the built environment.
It was truly a pleasure to celebrate Pascale and recognise her achievements. She is an inspiration to many Black girls, demonstrating that there is a place for them within the architectural profession. It is also encouraging to see the work she continues to do to advocate for the Black community, not only through her architectural practice but also through mentoring and art. We look forward to seeing how she continues to push boundaries and inspire future generations.
