Christopher Haedt, AIA

Christopher Haedt, AIA

Recognizing the critical responsibility he bears as a health care designer, Christopher Haedt, AIA, has dedicated his career to creating holistic health care environments that connect to the essence of humanity. Through his burgeoning practice, Headt has engaged and empowered his peers while continuously influencing his clients to envision better places for our communities to receive care and heal.

Headt has been a health care architect since 2007, a fate that seemed predetermined by sports injuries in his youth and growing up in a household that faced many health challenges. More recently, both of his parents dealt with traumatic heart issues that required extensive and continuous care. These experiences have shaped his practice and encouraged him to consider each patient’s unique perspective and experiences.

Today, Haedt is a principal at Designgroup and leads its Columbus office’s health care practice. His leadership has been critical on projects such as the Jameson Crane Sports Medicine Institute for The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, which has elevated the university’s profile as a national leader in sports medicine. He also led a small team that considered one of health care’s most difficult topics, death, for the 2020 Healthcare Design Breaking Through Competition. The conceptual project, Carpe Mortem, redefined the contemporary approach to hospice care to be more reflective of the rich and varied life one has lived. The project was also featured on the cover of the competition’s magazine in 2020.

His focus on improving our health care systems extends beyond his work at Designgroup, and Haedt has chaired AIA Columbus’ Academy of Architecture for Health, doubling its membership through presentations, happy hours, and tours. In May 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Haedt organized a panel conversation with local health systems that explored how they were coping with the challenges the pandemic presented. Subsequent events have centered on topics as wide-ranging as health equity and sustainability in health care, and all have helped elevate health care practice in the Columbus market.

Eager to share his knowledge and expertise more broadly, Headt is a regular speaker and presenter at events and symposiums across the country. He partnered with Angela Kolosky, AIA, to share two different emergency department transformation stories at the 2019 Healthcare Facilities Symposium and Expo in Boston. Alongside leaders from the institutions they served, Haedt and Kolosky discussed clinical innovations and efficiencies and their architectural responses.

A creative and committed architect, Haedt is an important advocate for spaces that heal and soothe humanity in its most vulnerable moments.