Connor Crist, AIA, NCARB, EDAC, Healthcare architect, senior associate, HFG Architecture (Wichita, Kan.)

While studying at the University of Kansas (Lawrence, Kan.), where he earned his master’s degree in architecture with a certificate in healthcare design, Connor Crist interned as an architect with Engineering Ministries International (EMI), a nonprofit, faith-based organization that provides design, construction, and technical assistance for ministries and communities in 31 countries. That experience led to his first healthcare design project—a maternity and surgery department at Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya—and fueled his passion for the industry.

After graduating in 2016, he joined HFG Architecture as a design professional. In 2022, he was promoted to healthcare architect and was named a senior associate this year.

Throughout his eight years in the industry, Crist has focused much of his architecture career on projects that provide and expand critical access to healthcare in underserved communities in the U.S. and around the world. On all his project work, Crist utilizes Lean design principles to improve hospital efficiencies and enhance community engagement. He’s also known for handling multiple roles, including design and master planning for several critical access hospital replacement projects.

In the U.S., Crist has provided planning on multiple federally qualified health centers that have taken different approaches to combining behavioral and population health into a standard clinic model. For example, the Wichita Multi-Agency Campus initiative in Wichita, Kan., will provide wraparound services and affordable housing to people experiencing housing insecurity. Crist was involved in project planning, which includes a new resource center, shelter, and various affordable housing options.

Internationally, his latest project at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya—the Tenwek Cardiothoracic Center—is scheduled to open this year and includes a hybrid catheterization operating room, five additional cardiac operating rooms, 175 patient beds, and educational space for training cardiothoracic surgery, perfusion, and anesthesiology fellows. Crist helped lead the HFG team in medical planning, schematic design, design development, and program production on the project.

By working closely with hospital staff, using available census data, and identifying anticipated goals, he and the team were able to determine viable design solutions that meet the current and future needs of the hospital and accommodate the unique requirements of the region.

He is currently the project planner and architect on the Africa Children’s Healthcare Fund Hospital in Mutengene, Cameroon, which will be just the fifth full-service pediatric hospital in Africa to offer specialized pediatric surgical services, inpatient and outpatient care, rehabilitation therapies, neonatal intensive care, emergency care, cancer treatment, and a full range of diagnostic and clinical services.

Dedicated to helping shape the future of healthcare design, Crist is an affiliate of the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design’s Institute for Health + Wellness Design, where he teaches students about the evolving rural healthcare landscape. He also serves on the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health’s Next Generation committee.

His expertise in rural healthcare facility design and commitment to sharing his knowledge with others in the industry sets Crist apart, while helping to improve accessibility to services for those most in need across the globe.

Path to healthcare design: During architecture school at the University of Kansas, I wanted to use design to help people. Originally, I thought the only way to do that was to serve somewhere in the developing world and design orphanages, safe houses, or other nonprofit facilities. While working on a project at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya during my internship with Engineering Ministries International (EMI), I really caught the bug for healthcare design and started to grasp how much impact designers can have to improve the lives of patients, staff, and families through dynamic and thoughtful design.

Describe your design approach: Dynamic and meaningful design for the least of these.

On your desk now: Design of the Salina Family Healthcare Center, a local federally qualified health center in Salina, Kan. In planning, we worked through process mapping to understand how the building could best support an integrated care model that includes behavioral and population health in the traditional medical clinic. This fall, I’m partnering on a project with the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design’s Institute for Health + Wellness Design to research how to effectively integrate behavioral health and telehealth into a traditional medical exam room.

Most rewarding project to date: In 2018, HFG began designing a cardiothoracic center for Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya. At the time, the facility had a severe lack of resources and trained staff and a waiting list of approximately 800 children who needed complex surgical intervention. The region is challenged with large numbers of heart, lung, and esophageal diseases, which are often treatable if medical treatment is available. Our task was to design a facility that could become the epicenter of ending rheumatic heart disease in sub-Saharan Africa, which included 300,000 square feet of modern hybrid and cardiac operating rooms, catheterization labs, cardiac care units, recovery spaces, and educational spaces to train medical staff of all disciplines. We’re excited that construction is complete, and the facility is expected to start seeing patients soon.

What success means to you: Success can never exist in a vacuum. Anything I or anyone else have achieved has all happened because somebody encouraged or impacted us in a way that drove us toward change, and I’ve been blessed to have had a lot of amazing people do that for me in my life. Success, for me, is honoring where we’ve come from and fighting for what we think is possible. Whether that’s raising kids, designing hospitals, or loving your neighbor, success comes when we’re truly present with those around us and take the time to listen to their story and just be together.

Industry challenge on your radar: Whether it’s a rural critical access hospital or a rural missionary hospital in Africa, access to quality care is still an incredible challenge. There are challenges of finding qualified staffing and keeping them around, deferred facility maintenance, and overall organization cash flow. I’m hopeful that over the next few years we’ll leverage design to support efficient staffing models and provide robust facilities that will stand the test of time and maintainability, all with the goal of keeping our rural facilities and communities alive.

Must-have skill for a healthcare designer today: Healthcare designers have some incredible challenges that we get to solve. The ability to think in multiple dimensions at the same time is incredibly important. This includes the obvious three dimensions of our physical environment, but it’s also about being able to think through time and phasing, client finances, people and material flow, emerging technology, and then how all these factors impact the occupants. Great design happens when you can hold all of these and more in your mind while working through a design challenge that truly responds to the challenges our clients are facing.

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