Giving Design Welcomes Lee Brennan to its Board of Directors
Giving Design is pleased to announce the election of Lee Brennan, AIA, to its Board of Directors. Brennan comes to Giving Design after recently retiring from international design firm Cuningham Group Architecture, P.A., and with over 39 years of professional experience encompassing all aspects of project delivery. “I am thrilled to welcome Lee Brennan as our newest board member,” said Christine Hardin, Founder of Giving Design. “Lee brings a wealth of experience and expertise in his field, is extremely well respected as a healthcare architect and will be a tremendous asset as we build Giving Design and further our mission of creating healing environments throughout our community.”
Brennan led the HEAL market group for Cuningham Group, is a former member of their board of directors and continues to work as a healthcare planning consultant to Cuningham Group and others in addition to his board member role with Giving Design. He directed the firm’s focus on cost-efficiency trends, such as facilities designed to improve at-home care by incorporating remote and mobile technologies, and streamlined the delivery of healthcare centers via Lean construction processes.
Some of Brennan’s notable projects include the Kaiser Permanente Orange County Medical Center in Anaheim, which was designed to connect its “healing garden” with improved Metrolink access and was built on a former brownfield site, revitalizing a light-industrial neighborhood, as well as the translational medicine facility for Kaleida Health System at the Global Vascular Institute in Buffalo, New York, which included healthcare on the lower floors and research on the upper floors.
While his career has encompassed a multitude of building typologies, for the last 32 years Brennan has been primarily focused on the delivery of projects for large healthcare systems such as Dignity Health, Kaiser Permanente, Keck Medicine, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Providence Health Services, Sutter Health, University of California and the Veterans Administration.
Brennan’s work and writings have been published in Architectural Record, Design Journal, Inland Architect, Progressive Architecture, Medical Construction and Design, and Texas Architect, and he has played instrumental roles in projects that have received design awards from Progressive Architecture and the American Institute of Architects. He has spoken internationally on a variety of diverse topics including Integrated Project Delivery, New vs Renovation, and the future of Healthcare.
About Giving Design
Giving Design works to create healing environments by making preliminary design services and products available to spaces that provide a community benefit, or improved health and medical services. Giving Design does this by partnering with businesses, skilled volunteers and other nonprofits to connect design beneficiaries with the professionals, products and labor they need. Design services are donated by highly skilled volunteers with expertise in architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, cost estimating, interior design, lighting design, graphic design, and more. Giving Design has the ability to make a powerful impact, particularly in light of the homeless housing crisis, and the next several years promise to be exciting and challenging.