The focus of Julia’s work as an architect, educator and researcher interrogates connections between health and architecture.  She explores health not only as a question of access but as a socio- political and cultural tool that shapes the quality of our built environment. Both with realised and conceptualised work, she sees design research as a tool to speculate about future scenarios and as a platform where research-led practice can provide real world solutions. In her research and practice, Julia is strongly invested in interdisciplinary, experimental and collaborative research methods, advocating to holistically design a project’s ecosystem, including a supply chain that is sustainable and regenerative. This has involved close and direct collaboration with Prof Sir Magdi Yacoub OM, a pre-eminent heart surgeon and Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Imperial College London. Together, they have worked on several health projects in Ethiopia, Burundi and Rwanda, creating new models of public healthcare and its delivery in the Global South. This work is complemented by UK based research with the NHS and focused on understanding hygienic boundaries that interrogate the uncertainties and contradictions in cultures, which have largely been influenced by Western medicine. Her current work involves the design and built of the first cardiac teaching hospital in Kigali, Rwanda and the wider region. It is a mission-aligned project and foresees to conduct 800 free-of-charge cardiovascular surgeries per year. Its medical ambition is to transfer knowledge, skills and expertise across the region and help create a biomedical and innovation knowledge base, which can be exported to Africa and the world at large.