During his last year in the university, after winning the competition to design flexible youth housing at Kruisplein, Rotterdam he co-founded Mecanoo with Henk Döll, Francine Houben, Roelf Steenhuis and Chris de Weijer.

[8] The early years of Mecanoo were characterized by projects which challenged the norms of urban renewal and social housing.

[8] A milestone project which expressed his new architectural approach was the Headquarters of ING Bank and NNH Insurance company in Budapest (1992-1994).

[6] This period was marked by a greater diversity of work, from product design (door handle Erick, 2008)[17] to master-planning (Oosterdokseiland in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, (1998-2001)[18] and increasing focus on Central and Eastern Europe where he built the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Warsaw, Poland (1999-2004),[19] ING Group Headquarters in Budapest, Hungary (1999-2004),[1] Hotel Kempinski in Bratislava, Slovakia (2004-2008) and other projects.

Erick van Egeraat was particularly interested to work in historical context, as shown in his projects of Liget Center (2000-2002)[20] and Deak Palace (2003-2004) in Budapest, Hungary[21] as well as master-plan of New Holland Island in Saint Petersburg, Russia (competition 2006).

[27] Russian Avant-Garde and Federation Island in Sochi (2007)[28] caused a stir and started a public discourse, but did not reach the stage of realization.

[8] He claims that ultimate measure for society or human being is not ability to make money, but its achievements and the beauty it has produced.