Women in Design 2018 - 16
16
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston
Robin Guenther
Principal
Perkins+Will
At 8 years old, Robin Guenther was riding in a car with her family
when she asked who made the buildings they were passing.
Dissatisfied with the answer of construction workers and carpenters,
she clarified: "But who decides what they look like?" Upon learning
that the responsibility fell to architects, Guenther determined her
future career.
The intense atmosphere engendered at her male-dominated
technical high school in Detroit primed Guenther for tackling
architecture, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels at the
University of Michigan, and then at the Architectural Association
in London, where her focus was on sustainable design, something
that lost favor with many after President Jimmy Carter claimed the
energy crisis of the 1970s was over.
Her first job at a New York architecture firm that handled
healthcare solidified Guenther's intimate connection with the field-
an interest that was piqued early on when her sister became an
emergency room nurse. Indeed, as a teenager, Guenther often spent
time at the hospital visiting her sister and volunteering. Her debut
project, an emergency department for New York's former Roosevelt
Hospital, merged the personal and professional, and cemented her
focus on healthcare. She enjoyed the intellectual rigor of "getting
buildings to be more responsive to caregivers," she points out.
She cofounded her own practice in 1991, an era when she began
to carefully consider the science and impact of materials, especially
the barrage of plastics "and what they might be contributing to in
terms of health and environmental outcomes." In the process, she
gravitated toward more natural alternatives like cork, attesting that
materiality can positively transform institutional settings.
In 2007, she joined the New York office of Perkins+Will to
head up the sustainable healthcare group and expand her holistic
approach. Since then, she has worked on such standout projects as
Boston's Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, designed with rising
sea levels in mind to be one of the most resilient hospitals in the
country, and the 521,000-square-foot expansion of the Lucile Packard
Children's Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto, California, designated the
second LEED Platinum children's hospital in the world.
Guenther's commitment to sustainability is amplified in other
ways, including in her 2008 book Sustainable Healthcare Architecture,
her longtime contributions to the Green Guide for Health Care (a
free rating system for hospitals), and her role as senior adviser to
nongovernmental organization Health Care Without Harm. All of
Guenther's explorations are motivated by one question, she says:
"Can we create environments that feel more human, more crafted,
like they were made by people, for people?"
Women in Design 2018
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Women in Design 2018
Contents
Women in Design 2018 - Intro
Women in Design 2018 - Cover1
Women in Design 2018 - Cover2
Women in Design 2018 - Contents
Women in Design 2018 - 2
Women in Design 2018 - 3
Women in Design 2018 - 4
Women in Design 2018 - 5
Women in Design 2018 - 6
Women in Design 2018 - 7
Women in Design 2018 - 8
Women in Design 2018 - 9
Women in Design 2018 - 10
Women in Design 2018 - 11
Women in Design 2018 - 12
Women in Design 2018 - 13
Women in Design 2018 - 14
Women in Design 2018 - 15
Women in Design 2018 - 16
Women in Design 2018 - 17
Women in Design 2018 - 18
Women in Design 2018 - 19
Women in Design 2018 - 20
Women in Design 2018 - 21
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Women in Design 2018 - 24
Women in Design 2018 - 25
Women in Design 2018 - 26
Women in Design 2018 - 27
Women in Design 2018 - 28
Women in Design 2018 - 29
Women in Design 2018 - 30
Women in Design 2018 - 31
Women in Design 2018 - 32
Women in Design 2018 - Cover3
Women in Design 2018 - Cover4
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