Interim Director, Design & Capital Redevelopment

Interim Director, Design & Capital Redevelopment

Reports to:

VP Corporate Services & CFO

Location:

GTA North

Duration: 6-Months

Virtual: 100% virtual

Our client is a major publicly funded healthcare organization advancing a large-scale hospital redevelopment project currently in the design phase. The organization is focused on ensuring that the architectural vision translates into a highly functional, clinically effective, and patient-centered environment that will support future models of care.

This interim mandate is a design-phase leadership role, positioned at the intersection of architecture, clinical operations, and patient experience. The interim Director will play a critical role in shaping and validating the hospital’s architectural design, ensuring that space planning, adjacencies, and layouts support efficient care delivery, optimal patient flow, and high-performing clinical environments.

• Lead Architectural Design Integration
  • Serve as the primary clinical and operational voice within the design process.
  • Work closely with architects and planning teams to translate clinical requirements into physical design solutions.
  • Review and challenge functional programming, blocking, stacking, and detailed design layouts.
  • Ensure alignment between architectural intent and operational feasibility.
• Shape Clinical Environments & Workflow Through Design
  • Ensure design supports safe, efficient, and modern models of care delivery.
  • Validate unit layouts, room configurations, and staff work zones from a clinical perspective.
  • Influence design decisions that impact staff visibility, collaboration, and patient safety.
  • Integrate leading practices in evidence-based healthcare design.
• Patient Flow & Experience by Design
  • Drive alignment between architectural layout and patient journey mapping.
  • Assess how design impacts access, throughput, way finding, and transitions of care.
  • Identify opportunities to enhance the patient and family experience through design features.
  • Ensure the facility design supports future-state care models, not just current operations.
• Clinical Engagement – Nursing & Frontline Validation
  • Lead structured engagement sessions with nursing leaders and frontline staff.
  • Facilitate design validation workshops, testing real-world workflows against proposed layouts.
  • Ensure that design reflects the realities of patient care delivery, staff movement, and operational pressures.
  • Build strong clinical alignment and ownership of the future facility design.
• Design Trade-Offs, Cost Awareness & Decision Support
  • Provide input into design-related trade-offs, balancing clinical impact, space constraints, and cost considerations.
  • Partner with capital and finance teams to understand cost implications of design decisions (without owning the full capital planning mandate).
  • Support leadership in making timely, informed design decisions to avoid downstream redesign.
• Ministry Alignment & Design-Phase Governance
  • Ensure architectural plans align with Ministry standards, guidelines, and expectations.
  • Support design-stage approvals and documentation required for funding and regulatory processes.
  • Participate in governance structures, including design committees and executive reviews.
  • Maintain alignment between design progression and approval milestones.

• Experience & Background
  • Senior leader with direct involvement in hospital redevelopment or large capital projects.
  • Deep experience working within the design phase alongside architects and planning teams.
  • Strong understanding of how workflows translate into physical space design.
  • Experience working within Ministry-funded environments and approval processes.
• Capabilities
  • Strong ability to interpret and influence architectural drawings, functional plans, and layouts.
  • Deep understanding of patient flow, clinical operations, and healthcare delivery models.
  • Ability to bridge clinical, technical, and design disciplines.
  • Sound commercial awareness of design decisions and their cost implications.
• Leadership Style
  • Credible with both architects and clinicians.
  • Collaborative but decisive in driving design clarity.
  • Comfortable operating in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
  • F…