THC - Erica Austin
🌿 Human CV: Erica Austin - Sacred Listener, Architect of Belonging
Erica Austin isn’t just building cities - she’s building culture. A trained architect with a heart for people over projects, Erica’s true gift lies in weaving human-scale change into large-scale systems. Whether designing community spaces in post-quake Christchurch or hosting co-creation circles for equity and inclusion, Erica believes the spaces we shape - and who shapes them - determines how we live, relate, and thrive.
🌀 Core Soft Skills
Deep listening - Her word of the year is Whakarongo: to listen with full presence and all senses.
Systems empathy - Erica maps not just who holds power, but how power is experienced - and shifted - in community.
Strategic humility - She knows the best ideas often come from the quietest voices in the room.
Calm catalyst - From local government to grassroots design jams, she holds space for courageous conversations and co-creation.
Bridge-builder - Between Māori and Pākehā frameworks, policy and practice, design and lived reality.
🌏 Guiding Compass: The SDGs
Erica lives and breathes Sustainable Development Goal #11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and #17 (Partnerships for the Goals). She builds connection, then action - not the other way around.
🏙️ Her Real Work?
Turning vacant lots into shared gardens. Turning meetings into safe spaces. Turning colonial-era planning into Treaty-aligned practice. Always asking: “Who isn’t in the room yet?”
📚 What Fuels Her?
A playful curiosity, a deep spiritual ethic of care, and matcha-fueled conversations about reimagining everything from power structures to physical structures.
✨ Erica’s Human CV (so far):
Whānau-first. Community-rooted. Spacious, intentional, and always listening for what wants to emerge next.
🌱 Want to collaborate with Erica?
Don’t message her with a pitch. Check out her website eacuration.space first - and if you happen to bump into her at an event, say hi and take it from there!
📍 See more Human CVs at thehumancv.com