Every healthcare facility, whether rural clinic, regional primary care center, or urban hospital, represents a unique community of people with shared context, connections, and culture. Through thoughtful design, each facility can support wellness by reflecting community context, fostering connection and belonging, and ensuring that cultural values are honored and sustained for the future. In this session, leaders from Seven Generations A+E (7GAE) will share how and why healthcare facilities should support well-being at a cultural level. With extensive past performance across the country, including dozens of projects with IHS and the Department of Veterans Affairs, 7GAE offers a unique perspective on the intersection of culture and health. Every facility serves a distinct population with cultural bonds and stories, with ties including geography, history, family, service, mission, trauma, values, and more. Key to unlocking this as an opportunity is raising the bar for community engagement, giving equal voice to all stakeholders. 7GAE is adept at collaboration and consensus building with all parties, including those who are underrepresented, uncomfortable sharing, and even untrusting, which includes people within the Indigenous and veteran communities 7GAE serves. The perspectives of these people are equally as powerful and important as standards and best practices, and they can lead to better design and outcomes. Karl Kowalske, 7GAE President, and Steve VandenBussche, 7GAE VP of Practice, will describe an approach for collaborating with diverse client and end-user groups, and summarize methods to identify and integrate their unique cultural qualities in ways that benefit health and welfare. They will share examples of IHS and VA Health projects, including how data-driven design strategies and biophilic design principles help support both long-term financial and environmental sustainability. This session offers tremendous value in the lessons learned across many varied projects and how experience on one project impacts and informs many others. Core Competencies: Strategic Planning; Space Planning and Programming; Design AIA Course Number: 2023.05.016 AIA CEU = 1 LU