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Bochart Joins Shepley Bulfinch

Sonja Bochart

Boston – Shepley Bulfinch recently announced that Sonja Bochart, IIDA, LEED AP BD&C, WELL AP, has joined the firm as a principal.

 

With 20 years of commercial design experience, primarily in healthcare design, Sonja creates meaningful and healthy spaces for connection, healing and overall well-being. She has spent the last year and a half working independently as a design consultant, lecturer and educator and has a deep commitment to sustainability and high performance buildings. Her focus in the growing field of biophilic design brings a unique skill set to Shepley Bulfinch.

 

She has been a prominent leader at major design and architecture firms, including Perkins+Will in California and SmithGroupJJR in Phoenix, where she was a leader in health and wellness interior design. Sonja’s designs integrate leading edge principles of biophilia, mindfulness, evidence based design, storytelling and sustainability to create holistic places of wellness, inspiration and transformation.

 

“Sonja brings a unique set of talents and ideas to the firm,” said Carole Wedge, FAIA, LEED AP, president of Shepley Bulfinch. “Her strong leadership in healthcare environments and her focus on creating sustainable and healthy environments to promote healing and productivity means that our team can further push the boundaries of design. For us, it’s not just about designing interiors but about how that design relates to the user of that space.  Sonja’s perspective helps us think creatively about the future. Her client-centric approach is highly valued both internally and externally.”

 

Biophilic design is especially well-suited for healthcare and higher education projects, which is where Sonja will focus her talents at Shepley Bulfinch. Research suggests that specific strategies and design support greater levels of positive benefits for building occupants such as increased cognitive functioning and productivity, improved satisfaction and happiness, physiological wellness, and a reduction in fatigue, stress and blood pressure. Biophilic design seeks to re-connect the built environment with nature through specific strategies including, but not limited to, the use of windows, natural materials, daylight, fresh air, plants and green spaces.

 

“Biophilia is our love of life; our innate connection to nature and to all living things,” explains Sonja. “When we harness the power of biophilia in the built environment we profoundly affect human health, creativity, productivity, happiness and healing. I am delighted to join Shepley Bulfinch, a firm I have long admired for their sensitive and thoughtful design approach, and look forward to taking the research that links positive outcomes to design strategies to our teams, projects and clients.   This approach is intended to help support designs that are directed at overall health for both human and ecological wellbeing.”

 

Prior to joining Shepley Bulfinch, Sonja recently worked with such clients as Banner Health, the International Living Future Institute, the Mayo Clinic, Welltower Inc., Georgia Institute of Technology and Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

 

Sonja graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science in Design, a FIDER-accredited program. She currently serves on the International Living Future Institute’s Biophilic Design Initiative Leadership Advisory Council, lectures and facilitates workshops nationally on the topic of biophilic design, has contributed frequently to such panels as Interior Design’s Healthcare and Wellness Council, and is an adjunct faculty member at The Design School at Arizona State University.