Robin Guenther

Abstract

Architect who advanced sustainable health-care design. Born on Oct 2, 1954, in Detroit, MI, USA, she died of ovarian cancer on May 6, 2023, in New York, NY, USA, aged 68 years. Robin Guenther was an architect who “integrated the philosophy of do no harm into all health-care design, so that it was part of a broader healing mission. Not just treating individual sick people, but also helping to heal the communities and helping to heal the planet”, said Gary Cohen, the President and Co-Founder of Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), a global advocacy organisation. Guenther helped push those ideas into the mainstream of health-care architecture through her own work, such as overseeing the design of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto, CA, USA, and through her collaborations and mentorship. “She changed mindsets about how people approach health-care design and brought global exposure to her fantastic ideas,” said Kathy Gerwig, former Vice President of Employee Safety, Health and Wellness and Environmental Stewardship Officer at Kaiser Permanente. Guenther studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London, UK, where she earned a diploma, and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, USA, where she received a master's degree in 1978. She moved to New York City the next year and by 1991 had co-founded the architectural firm, Guenther Petrarca. The business, which focused on health care and sustainability design, was renamed Guenther 5 Architects in 2001. Guenther became concerned about the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which includes a known human carcinogen, in the floors of health-care and other buildings she was designing. As she campaigned to replace PVC with safer materials, Guenther also began to look at eliminating other toxic building materials. A long-time Senior Adviser to HCWH, Guenther helped create the organisation's Green Guide for Health Care. Released in 2003, it was an “environmental health framework for health-care sustainable design”, Cohen said. It was modelled on the US Green Building Council's LEED certification programme, but Cohen said it broadened the scope to include “eliminating toxic chemicals in building materials”. The guide “inspired a new framework” for health-care construction, he said. Guenther would also help design the LEED Health Care rating system. At the same time, she “was an early champion and leader of the need for health care, particularly hospitals, to start doing their part to heal the planet”, said Leonard Berry, University Distinguished Professor of Marketing and Regents Professor, who holds the M B Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, USA. That meant going beyond “reducing harm or getting back to zero, but really providing regenerative spaces that were inspiring and motivating for the patients, but for the staff, as well”, said Blair Sadler, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Past President of Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, CA, USA. In 2007, Guenther published Sustainable Healthcare Architecture with Gail Vittori, a sustainable planning expert and Co-Director of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in Austin, TX, USA. That same year, Guenther's firm merged with Perkins&Will, where she would rise to become Chair of Global Health Practice. At Perkins&Will she would oversee projects that included the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown, MA, USA, and sought to ensure the facility would be able to function even during catastrophic flooding. That same thinking guided work she did with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) co-authoring guidance on enhancing health-care resilience in the face of climate change, which was released in 2014. “It quickly became part of the government's resources on the topic”, said John Balbus, her co-author on the guidelines. Balbus, who is now Acting Director of the HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, added: “She was really unique in her straddling of the private sector at a big design firm, the advocacy sector, and the government. She was just so willing to partner.” When she accepted the Women in Design award from Healthcare Design and Contract magazines in 2018, Guenther said her “career has always been about disruption…We have to create a different future in the built environment.” She is survived by her husband, Perry Gunther, two stepdaughters, and two sisters. “You only have the opportunity to build significant spaces every 50 years, usually”, Sadler said. “It's essential to be thinking ahead of the curve and to be thinking about environmental impact. Robin understood that as a core responsibility.”