Episode 74, Susan Suhar, NCIDQ, IIDA, LEED AP, WELL AP, Fitwel Amb, Design Principal – Interiors, Associate Vice President at HDR Architecture

About this episode

Susan Suhar discusses the evolving landscape of healthcare design and the importance of empathy in creating healing environments.

"The best way to think of it is like a do not use ingredient list, similar to checking a food label — but for buildings." — Susan Suhar on HID2.0 Today on the podcast, Cheryl sits down with Susan Suhar — Design Principal- Interiors and Associate Vice President at HDR Architecture in Los Angeles — to talk about what's changing (and what's timeless) in healthcare design. With 25+ years designing award-winning environments across healthcare, workplace, and life science, Susan brings a rare mix of creative vision and real-world rigor — designing for the whole ecosystem: patients and families, yes, but also the staff doing the caring every single day. Susan helps lead the vision and growth of HDR's LA interiors practice, and she's been deeply involved in major healthcare work including Cedars-Sinai's Marina del Rey Hospital and the UCSF Helen Diller Hospital project in San Francisco (part of a collaborative design team). In this conversation, Susan and Cheryl dig into the shifts shaping healthcare interiors right now — from behavioral health and outpatient growth, to sustainability, staff respite spaces, and why empathy still belongs at the center of every healing environment. WHAT WE…

People in this episode

Host: Cheryl

Guest: Susan Suhar

Topics covered

• healthcare design
• sustainability
• universal design
• staff respite spaces
• empathy in healing environments

Keywords

• healthcare interiors
• design principal
• award-winning environments
• behavioral health
• outpatient growth
• human emotion
• California healthcare design

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: HDR Architecture, Cedars-Sinai, UCSF Helen Diller Hospital

Places: Los Angeles, California, San Francisco

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