Rate My Professor Margo Annemans

Margo Annemans is a tenure track assistant professor at the Faculty of Design Sciences, University of Antwerp, within the Department of Interior Architecture. Trained as an engineer-architect and anthropologist, she teaches qualitative research methods for designers and the master studio 'Morphology of the Interior,' along with courses such as Design Theory and Methodology, People and Space, Research Methods for Designers 2, Design Studio 3: Interior as Shared Space, and various thesis and project supervisions in the Bachelor and Master of Interior Architecture programs. Previously, she served as a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven from 2015 to 2018, where she also conducted her PhD research on patients' spatial experiences in healthcare environments, earning the KU Leuven PhD prize. Her fascination lies in how the built environment influences the health and well-being of users, integrating insights from user experiences into architectural design practice.

Annemans' research primarily focuses on care contexts, including acute care, rehabilitation, psychiatry, palliative care, and penal settings, with emphasis on health and well-being, user experience, and inclusive design. She leads several projects, such as 'Humanising the Hospital: Rereading Interior Design and Architectural Concepts, 1960s-1980s, Belgium' (2026-2029), which documents and analyzes historical human-centered hospital designs and their contemporary relevance; 'HABITAT: From co-creation to impact in residential care architecture' (2025-2026); 'Benefitting from the Outdoor Environment: How to design (health)care facilities' in- and outdoor spaces' (2024-2028), exploring design strategies to enhance physical and mental health; and contributions to 'HOME-COSI-1 Holistic care plans' and accessible holiday accommodations research. Her publications include 'Architects’ approaches to healing environment in designing a Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre' (The Design Journal, 2016), 'The role of space in patients’ experience of an emergency department: A qualitative study' (Journal of Emergency Nursing, 2018), 'Drawing the researcher into data: drawing as an analytical tool in qualitative research' (Qualitative Research, 2023), 'Human-building-technology interactions in healthcare environments' (HERD, 2025), and 'Fostering inclusivity in a museum park' (CWUAAT 2025). With over 500 citations on Google Scholar, her work advances design anthropology and evidence-based healthcare architecture. She holds internal mandates including substitute chair of the Bachelor Interior Architecture Examination Committee, member of the Master Interior Architecture Examination Committee, Faculty Research Committee, and Onderwijscommissie Interieurarchitectuur as ondervoorzitter.