Architecture firm HOK will facilitate focus-group activities in partnership with the AIA’s Design and Health Research Consortium, which works to advance revolutionary, university-led research in the area of design and health, AIA announced.
The goal of the collaboration is to help members conduct research that can be translated into practice by architects and be beneficial to people.
The AIA and the Architects Foundation announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with HOK under which HOK and AIA will work with the consortium on its key priority—identifying and developing practice-focused opportunities for funded research, publications and tools in the area of design and public health.
“HOK is a bridge to the client community,” said Suzanna Kelley, AIA’s managing director of strategic alliances and Initiatives. “This first collaboration with the private sector is designed to inform consortium members what their ultimate client—the public—needs from their groundbreaking basic research into how design can help improve public well-being.”
Also a winner of an AIA/AAH 2015 Healthcare Design Award is the New York Hospital Queens Astoria Primary Care Clinic, Astoria, N.Y. Architect: Michieli + Wyetzner Architects. Photo credit: Alexander Severin/RAZUMMEDIA
The new partnership will leverage HOK’s global network of architects and clients to support translation of existing research—and build the case for more practice-focused research going forward. Findings from the focus groups will be documented and used to help Consortium universities direct their health research towards a more targeted, client-based approach.
The goal of the new partnership is to help Consortium teams further understand how research can be used in architectural practice, and to further the conversation with the Consortium’s public health partners. Focus groups will occur for the next year, concluding in May of 2017.
Anica Landreneau, HOK’s director of sustainable design, said, “We look forward to facilitating focus groups for these institutions and our multidisciplinary design partners in architecture, interiors, landscape, planning and engineering—as well as our clients—in the effort to focus the next generation of research on this important issue. HOK and the AIA seek to promote the understanding and application of critical ideas, research outcomes and evidence that sustainable design truly will improve human health and wellness, in addition to ecological health.”
The focus groups will be convened at or near the Consortium universities (full list can be found here), and findings of the conversations will be documented. AIA said the partnership with HOK provides the AIA and the Architects Foundation “with a unique opportunity to engage a respected architectural firm with significant reach on a domestic and global scale. It also helps the AIA fulfill its primary mission of facilitating holistic, synchronous and multi-scale solutions that can empower its members to address a wide range of areas connecting design and public health.”
The memorandum of understanding calls for the parties to document and summarize focus-group feedback for a broader audience, including the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health ASPPH, the Consortium Network and participants. The agreement also calls for establishing a process for providing AIA Continuing Education for architect members at each focus group event.
The Foundation
The Architects Foundation preserves, honors and advances excellence in design for the benefit of the public. As a nonprofit philanthropic extension of the American Institute of Architects, the Architects Foundation is the preeminent voice and advocate for architecture and design in America. The foundation is dedicated to the belief that good design is good for all and plays an essential role in transforming lives and building a better world, the AIA said.
