Healthier Humans

Forging healthier
generations

Health today isn’t just about illness. It’s about making health an omnipresent, multidimensional part of life. Mental wellness, food security, financial well-being, fitness, happiness, equity, purpose. They’re all interrelated. And together, they define what it means to live our best lives.

We’re not just designers for better health, we’re activists for better health outcomes. We infuse strategies for improving physical, mental and social well-being into every solution we design. We’re pushing to eliminate pervasive yet harmful materials from the building industry. And we’re partnering with leading healthcare organizations to revolutionize how medicine can and should work for everyone involved.

The world collectively has the knowledge to exponentially improve human health. Let’s all make it a priority.

Explore the ideas, people and projects empowering human health across our firm.

Testimonials

  • I believe deeply that the spaces where we heal matter. But the humbling truth I keep returning to is that the most powerful determinants of health never walk through a hospital door. Where you live, what you earn, whether you feel safe, whether you have someone to call at 2am — these shape your health in ways that no building can fully overcome. We need to keep designing better healthcare spaces, and we also need to start treating health as a design criteria for everything else.

    Abbie Clary
    Abbie Clary, FAIA, FACHA, LEED AP Executive Director, Health for All

Human health matters

34%

Since 1991 through 2023, the U.S. cancer death rate has dropped 34%, translating to an estimated 4.8 million fewer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.


But with over 2 million new diagnoses projected this year alone, and incidence rising in younger adults and women, the work is far from over — and the buildings where that research happens matter.

The Medical College of Wisconsin's Center for Cancer Discovery is part of that continued progress, bringing together research teams, shared resources and community engagement under one roof to accelerate discovery and directly address the cancer disparities facing southeastern Wisconsin.

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1 in 11

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) now provide care to 31.5 million patients, representing 1 in 11 people across the nation.


The work we're doing with organizations like Open Door Care Network is part of how that number keeps growing, bringing trusted, affordable care directly into the communities that need it most.

We partnered with Open Door Care Network to develop a master plan across four clinical sites and helped bring it to life, most recently transforming a former bank building in Ossining, NY into a modern care hub serving 18,000 patients annually, with integrated space for primary care, behavioral health and telehealth.

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20%

As of 2019, rural residents ages 25–54 had a 43% higher natural-cause mortality rate than their urban counterparts, per the USDA Economic Research Service.


The data underscores a growing rural health crisis driven by declining access to care, chronic disease, economic strain and systemic disinvestment.

We’re working with the Alice L. Walton Foundation on one of the country’s most ambitious efforts to address this crisis: the Bentonville Health Care Campus. By bringing care, education, research and innovation together in one connected ecosystem, the campus aims to expand access to high-quality care across the region while helping attract clinicians and healthcare talent to an area long impacted by shortages.

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Our actions

Every project is an opportunity to contribute to better health outcomes. But we know we have an important role to play beyond just project work. We're investing in research and programs to expand our understanding of human health and design's role in empowering physical, mental and social well-being for all.