About AfH
AfH is a non-profit organisation for those interested in improving health
and well-being through healthcare design, underpinned by a membership
of design and related professionals.
- Home
- About Us
AfH: Cross-sector collaboration with architecture at its heart
History
In the early 1990s, a change in government policy meant that valuable opportunities for collaboration between design and construction professionals in the healthcare sector were in danger of being lost.
The demise of the Department of Health Hospital Buildings Division, whose talented team and remit for research and development enabled them to set standards, monitor developments, commission research and work with regional and district health authorities’ multi-disciplinary teams, meant an invaluable resource was at risk of being lost.
The inception of Architects for Health (AfH) in 1993 was a response to this change, and since then, AfH has established itself as a forum for new ideas and a place to share best practice.
AfH has, and continues to be, a community where like minded professionals can share knowledge and experience; challenge policy and practice, and campaign for change.
First founded as a Friendly Society, today AfH is a non-profit organisation and limited company. the early years combined meetings at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) with lively, progressive debates at the Reform Club on Pall Mall.
An annual programme of events grew to include study tours and building visits, collaborations with other societies, such as the The Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management (IHEEM) and the Design in Mental Health Network (DiMH).
Today, AfH offers a diverse programme, including exhibitions, in-person talks and networking, plus a programme of online content geared to support client and design teams’ continuing professional development (CPD).
All design related disciplines are welcome and up to three members of any NHS organisation are able to join for free.
Event Programme
Continuing Professional Development
Architects for Health’s annual programme of activities aims to promote a better understanding of current issues in health planning and design and keeps members informed across the whole range of topics in the health sector.
Content is organised around both best practice and thought leadership and curated under three streams, ‘MIND’, ‘MEND’ and ‘ MATTER’. This enables the exec team and co-optees to develop content to support a wide range of projects and interests, collaborate with like minded associations in the UK and overseas providing plenty of opportunities for members to showcase their work.
To keep in touch you can follow AfH on LinkedIn and subscribe to our LinkedIn Newsletter – Architects for Health Diary.
Architects for Health
How we work as a society
Our Mission Statement
Architects for Health is a forum for sharing best practice, knowledge, innovation and thought leadership in the built environment.
Overview of the society and the Limited Company
Architects for Health was founded in 1991 by a small group of architects and others, to provide a forum for sharing initiatives and knowledge across healthcare design.
The society remains a non-profit organisation and accepts membership from all who share our aims.
From informal beginnings, Architects for Health has grown and flourished. In 2017, Architects for Health Limited was registered as a company limited by guarantee. The company is overseen by four Directors, who are the four Principal Officers as noted below.
Purpose and objectives
Architects for Health (AfH) aims to share and promote excellence in healthcare design, planning, development, teaching and research. AfH is a pan-discipline and collaborative society where all members can contribute regardless of their profession or affiliations.
AfH Executive Team
Jaime Bishop
Jaime has dedicated his career to encouraging debate and scrutiny of design, particularly of healthcare. This was originally seeded by the wave of hospital construction under the Blair administration in which he was greatly involved, and equally frustrated.
Jaime was invited to join AfH in 2006 by, the then Chair, Ann Noble. As part of his work with the organisation he conceived the AfH Annual Student Healthcare Design Award which launched in 2007 and he ran with Susan Francis until 2013.
Jaime Bishop is a Director at Fleet Architects in London which he founded with Richard Henson in 2009. Fleet are a public and socially focused practice working in acute, mental and primary healthcare alongside work for local authorities and charities, with a large proportion of their work exploring creative reuse of listed and heritage assets.
In 2020 Jaime is currently working to deliver mental health refurbishments from Bodmin to Durham, the creation of a Civic Superstore incorporating Primary Care, Community Services, with a library and council functions in an vacated supermarket. Jaime’s healthcare design is informed by the range of other work the practice undertakes including creative workspaces in hat factories in Luton and a grade II listed Fish Smokehouse in Grimsby to the reinvention of an historic hotel inn in Margate, Kent.
Jaime was educated at Bath University including a placement at TU Delft before attending The Royal College of Art.
Elly Williams
Elly has over 15 years’ of experience delivering complex healthcare schemes ranging from acute and ambulatory care to large scale whole hospital developments across the UK and overseas. She enjoys working with healthcare stakeholders to develop effective and efficient healthcare schemes centred around patient experience and clinical best practice and takes pride in advocating for patients and clinicians from inception to completion.
Elly is also passionate about mentoring the next generation of healthcare architects, equipping them with the skills and knowledge to drive excellence in healthcare design.
Elly is a Senior Associate at NBBJ and joined the AfH executive in 2020.
Gareth Banks
Gareth is a practising architect and Regional Director of AHR, based in Manchester, with over 25 years’ experience in the industry. For the last 15 years, Gareth has been actively engaged in designing and leading pioneering projects within the healthcare sector, including the completion of several NHS healthcare and related projects in the UK.
Gareth’s flare for innovative thinking, coupled with his expertise in the Health and Research sectors has enabled him to progress industry-leading solutions and evolve the way in which buildings and spaces can improve clinical care. He has led specialist design teams on a wide range of projects and his solutions have seen success, not just in the UK, but right across the globe, from the 7* Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi to The Queen Mary Hospital Laboratory redevelopment Hong Kong.
Gareth understands first-hand the challenges of providing different building types in diverse cultures, all utilising different technologies. As an executive member of AfH, Gareth is keen help develop and promote more innovative, flexible and creative ways to resolve the many challenges facing Healthcare today and safeguard its future within an era of climate emergency and pandemics.
Caroline Mulholland
Caroline is a Healthcare Planner with almost 25 years’ experience working in and supporting the NHS; supplemented with an MSc in Planning Buildings for Health from MARU. She is a passionate advocate for creating healthcare environments that provide staff with physical surroundings that both support and enable them to deliver the best care for their patients and clients.
Caroline brings her direct delivery experience to AfH, particularly in her current position working with a major national contractor, and is keen to explore the role that architecture and construction can have in producing sustainable solutions to help address the climate emergency.
Alice Green
Alice is both an Architect as well as an Interior Designer with over 15 years of healthcare experience, working as Associate Principal in Healthcare at Arcadis, a global multidisciplinary company that specialises in Healthcare Design. Alice is passionate about delivering high quality healthcare environments with a focus on improving the patient and service user experience.
Alice brings her holistic approach to design from both an architectural and interiors perspective to AFH in order to assist with policy, research and best practice visits.
In the projects she delivers and within the industry amongst peers, Alice advocates for high quality design through research, thought leadership and applying this knowledge practically, improving wellbeing for patients and staff and facilitating effective delivery of care by challenging operational policies and implementing new ways of working.
Alice has delivered a variety of community primary care centres, complex outpatient services, acute inpatient ward environments and has a specialism in mental health environments from refurbishments to whole site masterplans including health planning.
Ruairi Reeves
Ruairi Reeves is an architect and director of Medical Architecture, based in London. He has been designing healthcare environments for the last 20 years covering mental health, acute and primary care, in the UK, Ireland and Australia.
Ruairi is a keen advocate of both mental and physical wellbeing through design. He is particularly interested in how a patient’s environment can contribute to their well-being and recovery and is passionate about creating effective, therapeutic healthcare environments.
Ruairi is keen to develop AfH’s programme of high quality and diverse talks and visits. He wants to help AfH reach all UK regions and to promote healthcare design in education as the rewarding career choice that it can be.
Linda Jordan
Linda is an architect and Associate Director – Healthcare Sector Lead at DAY Architectural. She has extensive experience in designing healthcare environments and is interested in promoting knowledge share between architects, consultants, NHS, clients and contractors working in healthcare, and in developing ways of learning from each other both nationally and internationally.
In addition to being a RIBA chartered architect, Linda has a masters in personnel management and is an advocate for inclusion and diversity. With a degree in psychology from earlier in her career, she has a keen interest in the user experience of the built environment and how we can use research to enhance the delivery of healthcare environments. As Pillar Lead for Fostering Future Talent at AfH, Linda is keen to support a collaborative approach across the industry to enable the delivery of excellent design that will benefit staff, patients and communities.
Gonzalo Vargas
Gonzalo is currently Health Practice Lead and Associate Principal at Perkins & Will.
Gonzalo spent his formative years studying architecture and urbanism in Peru before relocating to the UK in 2002 where he began specialising in the healthcare sector. Gonzalo has worked at Nightingale Associates, Steffian Bradley Architects, NBBJ, BDP and most recently, Todd Architects.
With over 20 years’ experience and an MSc in Planning Buildings for Health, Gonzalo has a proven record in the design and delivery of many different types and sizes of healthcare facilities across the UK and Europe.
As a leading expert in the field of healthcare design, Gonzalo’s specialist knowledge equips him to dynamically ensure design quality and functionality whilst maximising efficiencies on costs by working together with clients, consultants, and contractors.
Dr Evangelia Chrysikou
Dr Evangelia Chrysikou (Lia) is Associate Professor at UCL and Director of the MSc Healthcare Facilities the only recognised master’s programme globally to study healthcare architecture and planning. She a prolific academic having won several prestigious grants and fellowships including two Marie Curie Horizon 2020. She is the Vice-President of the Urban Health Section, EUPHA and shapes policy as a member of the Board, National Accessibility Authority in Greece by invitation from the Greek Prime Minister. She has worked for consultancy projects with various governments and organisations, including the Reconstruction mechanism of Peru in collaboration with Arup on behalf of the British Government, the Greek Ministry of Health and the Centre of European Constitutional Law on new legislation regarding psychiatric facilities and the Environment Section of the European Innovation Partnership on Healthy and Active Aging of the European Union as co-ordinator of the Environment section. For her understanding of health and the built environment, she lead the Health and Built Environment work packages of the official inquiry by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on infectious diseases on the aftermath of the Princess Diamond Covid-19 outbreak. She has authored books and scientific and professional publications on healthcare environments. She is an RIBA architect, founder and owner of the awarded practice SynThesis Architects.
Evangelia has been dedicating her academic and policy work in increasing collaborations between industry and academia for the benefit of vulnerable people. As her research spans from New Zealand and Japan to Europe and Latin America and brings together disciplines of the built environment and health and she is passionate about increasing cross-country, cross-sector and cross-discipline collaborations.
Sarah Birkby
Sarah is a marketing and business development consultant with 20+ years experience in the built environment. In her role as BD Director for architecture practice, ADP, she was a regular contributor to IHEEM, Design in Mental Health and other key industry events.
Her past experience includes work in publishing and commercial events – running conferences and workshops across the UK and internationally. She now acts as AfH’s Programme and Communications Director, curating content for the AfH Membership and wider healthcare design community.
Helen Young
Helen manages the website, membership & event booking systems, provides liaison and coordination of AfH activities, helps with event planning and acts as a focus for AfH members and the Executive Committee.
Helen has worked with AfH since 2011 initially building the website and later working with the Programme Director to ensure smooth running of the AfH programme.
Helen comes from a web design/project management background, primarily in the private sector with online publishing and has good technical and design knowledge.
Sunand Prasad OBE
Sunand Prasad is a principal at Perkins&Will.
While designing across several sectors, he has been consistently engaged in healthcare and sustainability for four decades.
He was President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) from 2007 to 2009, campaigning for action on climate change. He was founding member of the UK Government’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment; a London Mayor’s design advocate; a trustee of the Centre for Cities; and Chair of the trustees of Article 25, the humanitarian architecture charity.
He currently chairs the Editorial Board of the Journal of Architecture and the External Advisory Board of TRUUD, a major research project on the fundamental links between health and urban development. He has written widely on architecture, sustainability and healthcare design, such as the book ‘Changing Hospital Architecture’.
Emma Smyth
Belen Francos Taylor
Belén joined Ansell & Bailey architects in 1998 and has over 25 years experience of delivering healthcare new build and refurbishment projects, from concept to completion. Appointed Director in 2013, she leads the practice’s NHS & private healthcare work in London.
A specialist healthcare architect, Belén has led the delivery of award winning projects recognised for their people centred design, community engagement and integration with the arts. She is passionate about creating high-quality healthcare environments that improve outcomes for patients, staff and visitors. A strong advocate of Evidence Based Design, she promotes the use of research and best practice principles to inform project development and design solutions.
With particular expertise in complex healthcare refurbishment, Belén has consistently delivered sustainable, innovative projects that exceed the client expectations. She is also a member of the Architects for Health Executive Committee, supporting the Ann Noble Research Award, Student Design Awards and the on-going development of the future healthcare design standards.
Martin Jones
Paul Mercer
AfH Co-opted Members
Hannah Brewster
Sophie Crocker
Nigel Pilkington
Matthew Hird
James Gordon
Amrit Naru
Christopher Shaw
Jane Ho
Iona McAllister
Benjamin Wall
Paul Gilligan
Mallika Bhattacharya
Would you like to know more about AfH?
At Architects for Health, we’re always eager to share our vision, connect with like-minded professionals, and explore potential collaborations. Whether you have questions, ideas, or simply want to stay updated, we’d love to hear from you.