The senior sustainable design specialist from HOK’s Houston studio joins 30 international leaders working to improve health and equity outcomes in the built environment.
HOK’s Rashida Mogri has been selected to Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) 2024 Health Leaders Network. This marks the seventh cohort ULI has impaneled to examine strategies for improving public health and social equity. Participants in this year’s cohort includes academics, designers, planners, healthcare providers, social workers, fund managers and more.
“What I appreciate about the cohort is how it draws people from across backgrounds and nationalities to learn from one another,” said Mogri. “For designers like me, it also provides an opportunity to share with new audiences how we approach sustainability and well-being and what solutions we can offer.”
The cohort recently held its first in-person meeting in Philadelphia, where members engaged in group workshops, heard from experts in public health and met with local leaders to see how the city is addressing social equity. The cohort will meet again in Vancouver this fall and hold a series of virtual meetings and symposiums in between.
Mogri’s interest in sustainable design began with an appreciation for daylight and how architects such as Alvar Aalto would use natural light to illuminate a building. As a child growing up in notoriously hot and humid Houston and Bahrain, she also learned to appreciate how design can ensure occupant comfort while limiting building emissions and environmental impact.
“To me, sustainability is just the right thing to do,” she said. “People of my generation are very much aware of how clean air and water affects us and that it is not a guarantee. As architects and designers, we should always be thinking holistically regardless of whether we have ‘sustainability’ in our title.”