Episode 59: Grand Challenges at the Center of Health, Design, and Society

Context is decisive. What if evidence-based design research could be combined with how we shape the context of the places we go when we’re sick, or face physical or mental health crises, or expectantly prepare for new beginnings, when we yearn for graceful transitions, or bittersweet endings over our lives? That was the question the Center for Health Design was created to ask and has helped answer for more than 25 years. Today it has become the global community and movement to explore this frontier. As their community gets together to map out the grand challenges in the next 25 years, we invite the pioneering leader of the Center, Debra Levin along with some of her advisors, members, and next generation thinkers to join us. They’ll help us explore how healthcare has changed, and how the science and design of our places might realize and embrace the grand challenges ahead.

Part 1: Pebbles and ripples create waves. Debra Levin is the President & CEO of the Center for Health Design. She has spent more than three decades trailblazing efforts in the field of healthcare facility design research, education and advocacy. She’ll give us an overview of the Center’s flagship research initiative, the Pebble Project, and how it changed the healthcare & design world. She’ll give us a sneak peek into the Center’s database of research and results, which has become a touchstone for anyone shaping life-long health. Under Debra’s watch, the Center’s membership has expanded to include a rich, multidisciplinary group of international architects, interior designers, healthcare executives, healthcare professionals, researchers, product manufacturers, educators, students, futurists and more.

Part 2: The Grand Challenges ahead. Vikram Dendi @vikman – the Chief Product Officer, Microsoft AI+R NExT/Healthcare, 
doctor, author and educator Roger Landry @livlongdieshort, journalist, chief of research at @GoodRx, & co-founder of @building_h, Thomas Goetz, and @MASSDesignLab’s Director of research initiatives, Amy Shao join us in a panel discussion to share what they believe are the grand challenges we face not only today but as we move past the current pandemic.

Part 3: Who’s got next? Samia Mansour, graduate student winner of the 2020 Healthcare Environments Award, joins us to share how she used evidence-based design to create her winning entry as well as how she sees the frontier ahead.