Deb Polzin-Rosenberg, RN, MArch
Deb Polzin-Rosenberg, RN, MArch is a nurse and architectural designer. She began her career training to be a midwife, but the sterile labor and delivery room, chaotic nursing stations and incessant beeping and chiming of the hospital environment left her deeply dissatisfied with the typical U.S. birth experience. She practiced as a registered nurse (RN) for many years in women’s health until she decided to tackle birth as a design problem. She earned a Master’s of Architecture (MArch) from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2015, where she was awarded a Graduate Studies Travel Grant to research the design of birth spaces in the UK and The Netherlands. In 2016, she worked with a team from MASS Design Group and Ariadne Labs to conduct research on the impact of design on clinical care in childbirth. Funded by a generous grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this study compared twelve diverse types of birthing facilities across the U.S. and explored ways that design affects clinical processes, decision-making and outcomes. Their work was published in HERD: Health Environments Research and Design Journal, the Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health, featured in the Review of Systems podcast and recently profiled in FastCompany. She lived and worked in Rwanda, as a designer with MASS Design Group, on several birth-oriented architectural projects in East Africa, including innovative maternity units for two district hospitals in Kigali and Munini and a Postnatal Unit for a rural community hospital outside Lilongwe, Malawi.
In her current role as Health Design Strategist with GA Collaborative, a Kigali-based architecture and design firm, she is pursuing research to inform design strategies to improve the safety and experience of birth among women living in rural Rwanda. She is also applying for a U.S. Fulbright Scholarship to study the design of maternity spaces in Sweden. She has studied and designed for healthcare in both the Global South and Global North and found that despite the enormous disparity in resources, there are lessons to be learned from both.