Rebecca J. Lewis, FAIA, FACHA, CID

December 2020 Pioneer Award recipient

Rebecca Lewis has dedicated her career to leading her peers and has contributed immeasurably to the greater good of the health care design profession through her involvement with professional peers, professional organizations such as the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health and the American College of Healthcare Architects, health care clients and patients, and the communities they and FGI serve. Ms. Lewis has been an unwavering advocate for ambulatory care facility design, evidence-based design standards for small and/or rural health care facilities, and the special needs of Native American tribal health care leaders. Her immense impact on the health care design field and all who have had the privilege to work with her is an achievement few of us can hope to accomplish.

Ms. Lewis joined the Health Guidelines Revision Committee in 2006, bringing her deep understanding of health care codes and standards to the Guidelines revision process. She is a talented presenter, an attentive communicator, and a steadfast champion of good design. Ms. Lewis has worked tirelessly to further the exchange of ideas that occurs in both the FGI HGRC and the broader health care design community. She is extremely insightful and uses inventive ways to gain consensus, encouraging contributions from many perspectives to forward new concepts. For several revision cycles, she strived to increase the quality of the Guidelines through her correlation efforts, consideration of different opinions in aiming for a minimum standard, and contributions to interpretations. Ms. Lewis takes a very thoughtful and questioning approach to ideas and information, and her efforts have helped shape the Guidelines into a world-class standard.