DrAnahita Sal Moslehian

Anahita Sal Moslehian is an architectural educator and researcher investigating how everyday living and care environments function as active socio-spatial systems that shape care, connection, and wellbeing. She earned her PhD in Architecture from Deakin University in 2022, where her doctoral research examined the evolution of hospital building design, the translation of research into practice, and the contextual factors that drive building design innovation.

Anahita is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the HOME Strategic Research and Innovation Centre at the School of Architecture and Built Environment. In this role, she collaborates with multidisciplinary teams across the built environment, health, social enquiry, economics, and law to design, deliver, and translate research into evidence that informs policy and practice. Across 17 transdisciplinary research projects, she has investigated how housing and care environments influence health, social connection, and everyday life. She has served as CI on approximately 75% of these projects, including four competitively funded studies that she initiated and led through cross-institutional collaborations. She has contributed to research partnerships involving academia, industry, government, and community organisations, producing publications in leading interdisciplinary journals and reports that support policy development and professional practice. The quality of her research was recognised with the 2025 Deakin University Early Career Researcher Award.

She holds the Evidence-Based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC) awarded by the US-based Centre for Health Design. Her work investigates housing and healthcare environments through the lived experiences of diverse end users, including healthcare patients, aged care residents, people experiencing homelessness, apartment residents, and office workers. She examines how the characteristics of the built environment interact with users' social, behavioural, and health needs, translating user-informed evidence into design strategies that promote health, wellbeing, and operational performance. Her current research extends this work by investigating how housing design and governance can support intergenerational living and everyday care, contributing to new housing models that integrate care, social connection, and health within mainstream urban development.

Beyond research, Anahita actively mentors and supervises PhD and master's students and contributes to STEM initiatives. She has taught design studios, research methods, and environmental building science across undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Her teaching positions architectural design as an iterative and reflective process of inquiry, equipping students to critically investigate complex design challenges and synthesise tacit knowledge, evidence, and best practice into robust architectural propositions. Her contributions to teaching were recognised with the 2025 Teaching Innovation Award for co-developing an innovative housing design studio pedagogy.

Anahita also contributes to the profession through national and international leadership roles, including with the Australian Health Design Council, where she leads research initiatives and national knowledge-sharing programs; the International Task Force on Health Promoting Built Environment (initiated by WHO), where she supports strategic planning and coordinates international e-learning activities; and the Australasian Early Career Urban Research Network, where she contributes to strategic initiatives that strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration and research capacity.

Research Groups:

• HOME Research Centre: Providing evidence-based, community-tailored housing and social inclusion strategies.
• Biophilia Lab: Creating a healthier and resilient world

Recent Key Projects:

• Intergenerational Housing as Urban Care Infrastructure: An Australian Nationwide Expert
• Nature-based design to support ageing in place in medium-density apartments
• Colac Otway Adaptable Precincts: A Blueprint for Future Housing Delivery [part of the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program]
• Health-Promoting Design of Residential Care Facilities: Enhancing Nature Connection to Influence Modifiable Risk Factors Associated with Depression
• Identifying opportunities and barriers to innovation in residential aged care building design: an Australian e-Delphi study
• Socio-spatial analysis of Australian residential aged care facilities: a case study of Traditional, Medium, and Small Household models
• Independent Living Unit Project: Evaluating a modular, transitional, independent living housing model for men experiencing homelessness
• Designing and retrofitting apartment kitchens to support healthy food practices
• Application of the Biophilic Design Framework to inform the design and construction of new Mental Health facilities in Barwon Health