5 Women Who Changed Healthcare & Senior Living Design

International Women’s Day last Sunday reminded me how many remarkable women have shaped healthcare and senior living design.

The story often begins with Florence Nightingale.

Though she was a nurse rather than a designer, Florence recognized something that would later become foundational to healthcare design: the physical environment matters. In Notes on Nursing (1859), she wrote about sanitation, fresh air, light, and hygiene—principles that still guide healing environments today.

Here, in no particular order, are five “contemporary” influential women in healthcare and senior living design over the past 30 years.

1. Tama Duffy Day, MA, FIIDA, FASID, FACHE

Tama’s passion for healthcare design began in 1982 while she was a senior interior designer at Ellerbe Becket working on her first healthcare project for the Mayo Clinic.

The project—a radiation oncology building that was the largest of its kind in the country at the time—opened her eyes to the profound ways design could shape the patient and caregiver experience.

From there, Tama built an extraordinary career leading healthcare and senior living design practices at global firms including Perkins+Will and Gensler. Her work spans an impressive range of projects—from replacement hospitals and community health centers to the planning of entire communities for older adults.

Today, Tama is focused on something just as important: inspiring the next generation. As Director of the Master of Professional Studies in Design of Healthcare Environments at the New York School of Interior Design, she’s helping emerging designers understand the powerful role the built environment plays in human health, well-being, and longevity.

2. Cynthia Liebrock, ASID, Hon. IIDA

Cindy was one of the early champions of universal design and aging in place—long before those concepts became common language in architecture and interior design.

As the founder of Easy Access to Health, she dedicated her career to improving the lives of older adults and people with disabilities through thoughtful, inclusive design.

For more than 30 years, Cindy advanced that mission through writing, teaching, speaking, and consulting. Her award-winning book, Beautiful Barrier-Free: A Visual Guide to Accessibility and Universal Design, remains one of the most practical and influential guides on the subject.

Cindy is retired now, and although I haven’t connected with her in a while, I have no doubt she’s still championing the ideas she cared so deeply about. More about Cindy>>>

3. Maggie Calkins, M.Arch, Ph.D.

Early in her career as an environmental psychologist, Maggie became fascinated by a simple but powerful question: how can the environments we design better support people living with cognitive impairment?

Much of her early research focused on residents with dementia in nursing homes—settings that, at the time, were often institutional and disorienting rather than supportive.

Through her work, Maggie helped demonstrate how thoughtful design could compensate for cognitive losses and help people maintain independence, dignity, and connection to daily life.

I first encountered her work when I heard her speak at the Symposium on Healthcare Design in 1990, and it fundamentally changed the way I thought about the role of the environment in memory care.

Today, dementia-friendly design is recognized as a specialty within healthcare and senior living design due in no small part to pioneers like Maggie. A founding board member of the Society for the Advancement of Gerontological Environments (SAGE), she’s still active in the field, speaking, consulting, and volunteering.

4. Jane Rhode, AIA, FIIDA, CHID, ACHA

Trained as an architect, Jane began focusing on environments for older adults early in her career—long before senior living became the vibrant design sector it is today.

She was part of a determined group of designers pushing the field away from institutional models toward more residential, person-centered environments.

Through her design work, speaking, and volunteer leadership, Jane has championed smaller-scale communities, meaningful daily life, and environments that support autonomy, social connection, and dignity.

She also played a critical role in shaping the FGI Guidelines for Design and Construction of Residential Health, Care, and Support Facilities, first published in 2014, which have helped modernize how care environments are planned and built.

Never one to stop pushing the conversation forward, Jane’s latest venture is Live Together, a nonprofit organization exploring intergenerational housing models that reimagine how people live, age, and care for one another. More about Jane>>>

5. Jain Malkin

When Jain chose to specialize in healthcare design in the 1970s, hospitals were stark, institutional places—white walls, gray VCT floors, and cool fluorescent lighting.

Families were often treated as outsiders with limited access to patients, and the patient experience offered little dignity, comfort, or choice.

With a background in psychology, Jain began studying what it actually felt like to be a patient in these environments. She documented what she observed through photography and wrote extensively about the emotional and psychological impact of healthcare settings.

At the time, there were almost no resources for designers interested in healthcare environments.

Jain changed that. She wrote the first book on medical and dental space planning in 1982—a resource that remains influential today. She followed it with Hospital Interior Architecture in 1992, one of the first books to propose a research-based approach to hospital design.

Throughout her career, Jain gathered research across medical specialties and translated it into practical guidance for designers, helping lay the groundwork for what later became the evidence-based healthcare design movement.

Now retired, I suspect she’s still doing what she’s always done best—learning, observing, and asking thoughtful questions about the world around her.

P.S. Please do me a favor — if you liked this post and like this blog, please share it with others by sending them the link or posting it on your LinkedIn, X, or Facebook. Also, don’t forget to subscribe, so you’ll get emails when new content is posted. Thanks!