Ayesha Wahid, NCIDQ, WELL AP, Interior designer, E4H Environments for Health Architecture (Boston)

In her six years as an interior designer in the healthcare design industry, Ayesha Wahid has demonstrated adaptability and a commitment to delivering designs that are not just aesthetically pleasing but also functional, practical, and inclusive.

She first came to the U.S. from her home in India to study interior design at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, where she was a Presidential Scholar. After a healthcare design studio sparked her interest in the field, she joined E4H Environments for Health Architecture as an intern and then as a full-time designer upon graduating.

A year later, to continue working in the U.S., she applied for a merit-based visa which entailed amassing work samples and reference letters that showcased the quality of her work and the clients she had worked with, including Mount Sinai Hospital, Northwell Health, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, all in New York. Renewing this visa in the years since has required regularly submitting new projects and letters of reference as well as trips back to India.    

Wahid has grown as a leader in E4H’s interiors group, handling a range of projects, where she’s learned how to balance aesthetics with specific patient needs. For an emergency department renovation which included a comprehensive psychiatric emergency program at Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., Wahid and the project team introduced features such as digitally printed wall protection, simple patterns in the flooring, and soothing accent colors to bring visual interest to the project, while also ensuring the safety of the patients and of those around them.

At Northwell Health Fertility in New York, she was mindful to select materials with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as the clinic serves patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment and exposure to high levels of such chemicals can negatively affect the chances of the embryo. She balanced this requirement while also creating an interior that engendered comfort and calm.

Currently, she is completing the interior design for Mount Sinai Hospital’s Diversity Innovation Hub, a center focused on cultivating innovative and equitable health solutions. To create an environment that inspires collaboration and is energizing, she specified design elements such as writeable, back-painted glass walls and vibrant paint colors.

Through her work, she brings a sensitivity to context that helps patients to feel comforted by their surroundings, while reassuring them of a care environment’s clinical precision. Her ability to blend creativity with practicality makes her an invaluable asset to healthcare design.

Path to healthcare design: A healthcare design studio in college—before which I hadn’t considered it for a career. For part of the semester, we designed a medical office followed by a “patient room of the future” design charette. I thoroughly enjoyed the research involved, operating within the margins of codes and guidelines that inspired a different type of creativity, as well as the fact that the design felt meaningful. I had a strong connection to these projects, which I hadn’t felt as deeply during previous studios. As graduation approached, it felt natural to try and pursue a job in healthcare design and I haven’t looked back since.

Describe your design approach: Centering patients, their families, and caregivers in every design decision.

On your desk now: For the first time in my career, I’m working with a team on the design of a hospice facility. Helping to create spaces that will bring comfort to a person in their last days has been an experience like no other. Considering the experience of caregivers, family, and friends feels even more charged and meaningful than usual. I am learning a lot about the distinct ways in which a hospice facility operates differently from a hospital, and about design solutions that blur the lines between the durability of healthcare design, the detail of hospitality design, and the comfort of residential design.

Most rewarding project to date: In my first year in healthcare interior design, I had the chance to work on a project for Northwell Health Fertility in Manhattan. It was a fascinating project, learning about the science behind the IVF procedure, the flow of the process, the type of materials that are safe to specify to ensure the health of the embryos, and the variety of emotional states the hopeful parents might be experiencing. From a design standpoint, it was an interesting challenge to try and seamlessly weave together the sterility that is required of the lab and procedure areas with the warmth that is needed of the patient consult and recovery areas. Playing this small role in someone’s path to becoming a parent has meant the world to me.

What success means to you: Success for me is defined by a sense of contentment and gratitude. In a professional sense, it means being happy with the quality work I put out there and with the relationships I have with all the people I work with. It also means continuing to learn and feel fulfilled with what I do. I would also feel accomplished if I can help bring more voices and perspectives into the field of healthcare design that are not adequately represented, such as women, differently abled people, and people of color. Having a variety of people at the table will only strengthen our design solutions and ensure that our healthcare environments are more inclusive, accessible, and effective for everyone.

Industry challenge on your radar: Encouraging manufacturers and clients to work toward using materials and systems that are carbon neutral, or even reduce carbon emissions. Prioritizing such materials during specification will eventually motivate manufacturers to scale up production. Undoubtedly this will reduce costs over time and make these materials more appealing to clients for future projects. The built environment has a large role to play in global carbon emissions, and it’s crucial that we actively contribute to reversing this trend.

Must-have skill for healthcare designers today: I think it’s important to believe that what you bring to the table has value and that your voice matters. For many of us, this belief in oneself is a skill that needs strengthening, and one that improves over time. Often, when starting out or when working on a new type of project, it is easy to doubt yourself and your place in the team. However, we all bring a unique perspective to the project, whether that’s shaped by years of professional experience or a fresh outlook with innovative ideas. Combining this self-belief with an openness to continued learning and growth is essential for any healthcare designer aiming for success today.

Click here to read more about all of HCD’s 2024 Rising Stars.