Thought Leadership

Progressive AE has hired internationally distinguished architect Vlad Torskiy to lead our healthcare practice. With Master’s degrees in architecture, healthcare administration, urban design, and fine arts from institutions in Ukraine, Israel, and the U.S., Torskiy brings a unique skillset and vision to serve the firm’s healthcare clients.

“Vlad’s leadership in healthcare design and the scale and complexity of projects he has completed will allow Progressive AE to expand our offerings and benefit both current and future clients,” says Brad Thomas, CEO. “We are looking forward to learning from each other and adding his experience to our growing firm.” 

Torskiy boasts a portfolio of impressive clients in the healthcare field. Notable projects include the sprawling 1,383,000 gross square-foot Manazel Medical City in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; an extremely complex and prominent 1,565,000 gross square-foot Ohio State Wexner Medical Center modernization; and integrated planning commissions with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to improve care services and integrate facilities across multiple Veterans Integrated Services Networks and states. He has also worked on a variety of children’s hospitals, research hospitals, and assisted living facilities.

Regionally, Torskiy led a project in Grand Rapids to improve Spectrum Health’s downtown campus healthcare operations, medical planning, budgeting, LEAN operations improvements, convert it from a tertiary to quaternary care center, and work on the Butterworth Hospital and Meijer Heart Center reconfiguration.

Torskiy is also the recipient of a Design Team Distinction Award from the Healthcare Facilities Symposium for his work on the Illinois Masonic Medical Center. He is recognized as a thought leader in the field and presents regularly on urban healthcare design and related topics. Torskiy is joining us from SmithGroup in Chicago, IL.

As an architect with a deep investment and understanding in the healthcare field, he is looking forward to helping clients find the right solutions to their facility’s needs. “If you think about it in healthcare terms, you have diagnosis and you have the treatment,” he explains. “When you receive the request for proposal from a client, you are pretty much being asked to conduct an invasive intervention. But does an institution or a system really need a major surgery, or will a minimally invasive incision suffice? It adds value to the client when they realize their architect is capable of thinking way beyond just design and deliverables, and is knowledgeable in their business, understands their financial, programmatic, operational, and clinical needs, and can help them to diagnose the problem properly. We can help our clients to save a significant amount of money, or to actually plan for a different future.”

Torskiy is looking forward to joining the firm on October 11. “Brad Thomas and I worked together back in the early 2000’s on a couple of projects at Mercy Health,” he shares. “The partnership and collaborative spirit at Progressive AE I noticed years ago is still here, and is evolving and growing. I believe that Progressive tries to reinvent itself so it’s better, more competitive, and adds value to clients. My focus in healthcare is that we can help people as patients because sooner or later, each one of us becomes a patient. That’s what I always like to bring to my work, and I think this is what Progressive values as an organization.”