Pending 1.5 LU | 1.5 HSW Credits
Join the AIANY Public Architecture Committee for a lecture and panel inviting architects, designers, birth workers, and the public to consider childbirth as a shared spatial and societal health concern, and to explore how thoughtful design can support safer, more humane, and more equitable birth experiences.
Childbirth is a universal human experience, yet it is rarely understood as a design issue. Although all of us are shaped by the environments in which we are born or in which we give birth, birth spaces are often treated as a specialized or gendered concern and are commonly modeled on acute-care hospital settings. This approach has real consequences. The United States has the highest rate of preventable maternal mortality among ten wealthy nations, with profound racial disparities. Beyond mortality, many families experience birth as traumatic rather than supportive, with lasting physical and emotional effects.
While medical care is essential when complications arise, childbirth is typically a healthy physiological process. Research increasingly shows that the physical environment—privacy, light, sound, spatial layout, and opportunities for movement—plays an important role in stress levels, labor progression, and overall outcomes. Yet many contemporary labor and delivery units pathologize birth, and prioritize efficiency and monitoring over autonomy and emotional safety.
The event will be accompanied by a showing of immersive audio-visual installation SheSaid: An Archive of the Birth Experience, created by Suzy Genzler at EwingCole and Joe Tomcho, New York based filmmaker, before and after the keynote and panel.
Keynote:
Kim Holden, AIA, Architect and Doula; Founder, Doula x Design
Panelists:
Myla Flores, Founder, The Birthing Place Foundation; 2025 CNN Champion for Change
Suzy Genzler, CHID, EDAC, Design Researcher and Medical Planner at Ewing Cole
Eugenia Montesinos, CNM, Midwife and Co-Chair, NYC Midwives
About the Speakers:
Kim Holden is an architect, doula, and women’s health advocate. She is the founder of Doula x Design and an original founding principal of SHoP Architects. Her work positions childbirth as a design issue, examining how architecture, environments, and policy shape maternal experiences, inequities, and outcomes. Through research, teaching, and interdisciplinary collaboration, she advances evidence-based design strategies that respond to the maternal health crisis. In 2023, she served as the William Henry Bishop Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale, co-teaching a graduate studio on spaces of birth with Emily Abruzzo. She currently serves as a Shaw Innovation Fellow advisor on maternal health issues at the University of New England, and advises organizations working at the intersection of design, health, and legislation, including NY based The Birthing Place Foundation, Mobilize Maternal Health Coalition, and the Designing Motherhood exhibition, currently at MAD.
Myla Flores is a leader and visionary in New York City’s maternal health landscape, building a suite of community-based programs that expand access to safe, informed reproductive care throughout pregnancy, labor, birth, and postpartum. She is the founder of the Bronx-based The Birthing Place Foundation (TBPF); co-founder of Womb Bus and Maryam Reproductive Health + Wellness; and President of the New York State Birth Center Association. TBPF was recently awarded a $5 million grant from Governor Kathy Hochul and DASNY to build a birth center in the Bronx. Flores was named a 2025 CNN Champion for Change in recognition of her work transforming perinatal experiences for Bronx mothers through culturally aligned support and advocacy.
Suzy Genzler is a Healthcare Design Research Specialist and Medical Planner at EwingCole, where she conducts research on spaces of birth. She is also a professor in NYSID’s Master of Professional Studies in Healthcare Design (MPS-H) program, where she previously served as Program Director. Genzler has held healthcare design positions at NK Architects, NBBJ, and HOK. She is the creator of the immersive audio-visual installation She Said: An Archive of the Birth Experience, which debuted at Transforming Birthspace: A Global Colloquium in Toronto in fall 2025.
Eugenia Montesinos is the Midwife and Co-Chair of NYC Midwives. With more than two decades of experience, she has attended over 1,300 births. Previously, she served as Assistant Director for the Department of Midwifery at NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan in East Harlem. At NYU Langone, Montesinos is dedicated to setting new standards of excellence in maternal care while working to reduce health disparities and address the maternal mortality crisis in New York City. She collaborates with NYU Grossman School of Medicine to establish educational objectives for medical students and residents, emphasizing optimal models of collaborative care alongside midwives.
AIANY Public Architecture Committee
