Soni Ranjan | Associate, Salt Lake Market Lead | Wellogy
Soni Ranjan is an Associate and Salt Lake Market Lead at Wellogy, bringing a multidisciplinary perspective shaped by her education and experience in interior architecture and product design across two continents. She specializes in creating human-centered environments within healthcare, higher education, science and research, and community sectors. Guided by a strong commitment to people and meaningful impact, Soni leverages design as a tool to create thoughtful environments that contribute to a better built world.
Can you describe your role at Wellogy and what your day-to-day work looks like?
At Wellogy, I operate at the intersection of business development, strategy, project management, design, and client partnership, connecting vision to execution. My day-to-day is guided by a focus on innovation, inclusion, and wellness, advancing Wellogy’s mission to use design as a catalyst for well-being across diverse sectors.
What drew you to healthcare design, and what continues to motivate you in this space?
I started in product design, where I learned that experience shapes perception, meaning design influences how we feel, think, and respond. That perspective expanded into interior architecture, shaping environments at a larger scale. In healthcare, I saw a gap. We focus on medicine and technology, but often overlook human experience and yet every space influences how people feel and heal, raising a simple question: who are we designing for?
What drives me is the belief that design can be part of healing itself by supporting both outcomes and the human journey behind them.
In your experience, what defines a truly successful healthcare project—for both providers and patients?
A successful healthcare project goes beyond the building as it responds to a shift from reactive systems to connected, preventative ecosystems.
How do we design for an ecosystem, not just a place?
For providers, it’s about reducing friction and supporting well-being. For patients, it’s about creating spaces that feel intuitive, dignified, and restorative. The most successful projects are evidence-based, adaptable, and built to evolve with the future of care.
How do you balance technical requirements with the human experience in healthcare environments?
The future of healthcare design requires us to stop separating technical performance from human experience, as often the best environments make complexity invisible. We use data, simulation, and evidence-based research to drive performance, and translate those insights into sensory, human-centered spaces. When done well, technology fades into the background, leaving environments that support comfort, connection, and care that is guided by data and shaped by empathy.
How do you build trust with clients in complex, high-stakes projects?
Trust is built when clients see you as a steward of their mission and an equal partner. It comes from transparency, grounding decisions in evidence, and aligning design with their long-term goals. It’s also about listening and understanding not just what’s said, but what’s beneath it, and anticipating what’s ahead. Over time, trust is about shared confidence in the process.
What principle or belief consistently guides your work, regardless of the project?
The principles that guide my work are stewardship of people, place, and future. As designers, we have a responsibility to use innovation to create environments with lasting impact. That means curating experiential spaces that actively restore, support, and enhance well-being at every level.
You’ve worked on the client side with the VA. How has that perspective shaped the way you approach projects today?
It shifted my focus from delivery to responsibility. Individuals within this environment carry visible and invisible trauma — the built space can either heighten stress or support healing and trust. Trauma-informed design applies principles of trauma-informed care to the built environment. Every detail, from noise and visibility to circulation to a sense of control, impacts how safe and supported someone feels. It’s a reminder that good design must function well, build trust, restore autonomy, and support emotional well-being for all.
What insights did you gain from your time with the VA that you think design teams often overlook?
Adaptability. We tend to design for certainty in a world that’s constantly evolving — care models shift, technology advances, and communities change. The real opportunity is to embed equity, access, and wellness into every decision, while creating systems that can adapt over time, without ever compromising the human experience.
Where do healthcare projects most often run into challenges, and how can teams better navigate them?
Rigid planning, siloed decisions, and late stakeholder and consultant engagement.
Using real-time data, scenario planning, and continuous engagement with key stakeholders will shape a map allowing for thorough navigation from early site analysis and due diligence through delivery, adding value throughout the process.
Can you share a project or experience that shaped how you approach your work today?
My time working on projects at the George E. Wahlen VA Medical Center taught me that impact isn’t measured in scale, but in human connection.
In a setting defined by service and constraint, every decision—with respect to space, people, service workflows, and visible and invisible experiences—matters. My perspective shifted from delivering projects to designing for resiliency and regeneration, because fundamentally, design shapes experience, dignity, and care from the first conversation through project closeout.
How does collaboration across owners, clinicians, and consultants influence project success?
Healthcare, being service-based, is inherently collaborative. In design, the most successful projects create a shared language where clinical insight, operational strategy, and design expertise continuously inform one another.
When collaboration is intentional and sustained, it leads to stronger alignment and better holistic solutions.
What trends are you seeing in healthcare design, and how are they shaping your approach?
Healthcare design is shifting from centralized facilities to connected, community-based ecosystems. Digital integration, AI, and real-time data are transforming care delivery, while attention to behavioral health, staff well-being, and social determinants continues to grow.
These trends push us to create flexible, human-centered environments that are resilient, regenerative, and responsive.
Looking ahead, what will define strong healthcare design over the next 5 to 10 years?
Strong healthcare design will create smarter buildings and responsive systems deeply connected to the communities they serve.
Care will become a networked, connected ecosystem, and to support that, design processes will focus on adaptability, innovation, and self-sustaining systems that address challenges and enhance quality of life.
