30th Annual HFSE Event Announces Opening Keynote Speaker
By Rachel Leber
AUSTIN, Texas — This year’s Annual Healthcare Facilities Symposium & Expo (HFSE) will be hosted at the Austin Convention Center from Sept. 18 to 20. The 2017 symposium will be the 30th anniversary of the event, originally founded in 1987 by Wayne Ruga, PhD, FAIA, FIIDA. HFSE has announced its keynote speaker Marika Shioiri-Clark, principal at Cleveland, Ohio-based SOSHL Studio in Cleveland, Ohio for the Sept. 18 Monday morning welcome ceremony to open the three-day conference. Stacy Chang, executive director at the Design Institute for Health in Austin, will be the featured keynote speaker on the second day of the event.
The current mission of the HFSE is to create a multi-disciplinary environment that inspires change and the advancement of a better delivery of health care through physical space. Attendees will include architects, health care providers, facility managers, interior designers, contractors, engineers, clinicians and researchers, with many educational opportunities, speakers and workshops at their disposal. This year’s event will be hosted in conjunction with The National Organization for Arts and Health (NOAH), which will be the organization’s first annual conference.
“We are looking forward to being in Austin this year for many reasons,” said Jenabeth Ferguson, HFSE vice president and symposium director. “Growth in the area is demanding more health care. We are excited to be a part of it and see the new facilities that are emerging. So many folks are looking to explore the city, and we love bringing the symposium to vibrant destinations.”
Opening Keynote Speaker Shioiri-Clark is a designer and architect who founded SOSHL Studio, a design firm dedicated to social impact through architecture and design. Shioiri-Clark works with organizations such as the Nike Foundation in Nigeria and Ethiopia, IDEO.org and DFID in India. Shioiri-Clark helped to design the acclaimed Butaro Hospital in northern Rwanda, as a co-founder of MASS Design Group and in collaboration with Partners in Health. On the second day of the symposium, Stacey Chang, executive director at the Austin Design Institute for Health will be the second keynote for the event.
“Our opening keynote is an opportunity to get our attendees to break away from the daily grind and be reminded why the work we do is so important. This year Marika Shioiri-Clark is going to teach us all about thinking globally and acting locally,” said Ferguson. “I am really interested to hear from someone who clearly got a jump-start on her career by working on the Butaro Hospital in northern Rwanda while still in design school.”
In addition to a long list of speakers and many educational opportunities at the event, the symposium will be hosting an awards program called the Symposium Distinction Awards. The deadline for submission is July 28, and the awards ceremony will be held in the form of a luncheon at the conference on Sept. 18. The annual program recognizes design teams, projects and individuals who have made a profound contribution to the health care design industry, and accepts submissions of all types and sizes of patient care-related facilities. The program will have awards in the categories of teamwork, user-centered projects, adaptive reuse, leadership, young professionals and more.
Additionally, there will be product awards that will recognize innovative new products that contribute to the enrichment of a healing environment through their unique design and operational support in the categories of “most innovative,” “most sustainable” and “architect’s choice.”