Wikoff Design Studio, based in Reno, Nevada, has a heartbeat and her name is Marie Wikoff RID, CHID, LEED AP, EDAC. Placing her emphasis on healthcare design, she has spent two decades of really listening to her clients when they tell her, “I live at work. It is my home away from home”, as well as her clients’ clients who look to doctors’ offices, healthcare clinics, hospitals and long term care facilities as places of hope and healing, frequently for the entire family.
In an ever changing dynamic and evolving healthcare system, Marie maintains cohesive relationships with architects, engineers and contractors to ensure that the client’s economic resource requirements are strictly adhered to.
Her goal is to promote efficiency in administering the most advanced technologies and treatments to patients, while preserving the human need for beauty, spirituality, tranquility and warmth for both the healthcare providers and their clientele.
Her latest credential, Evidence-Based Design Accreditation and Certification, or EDAC, is a credential based on methodology that has become popular in healthcare because it improves well-being, patient healing, stress reduction and safety.
This relatively new approach on design borrows terminology and ideas from multiple disciplines such as environmental psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics. It encourages the use of certain design techniques that relieve pain, stress and reduce medical errors, infections and falls.
Marie has successfully completed a broad range of healthcare, commercial and religious projects in Nevada, California and Brazil. While doing work in Brazil, she donated a lot of time to designing a children’s cancer hospital. She has committed an extensive amount of time towards being on the Board of Directors for the Ronald McDonald House Northern Nevada, the American Society of Interior Designers, and various other committees and organizations throughout northern Nevada.