Experience Design  /  Branded Environments

I design spaces
where brands become real.

Trained as an architect, practiced across every medium — from surgical suites to sports arenas, from customer experience centers to the interactions that surround them. The work is always the same: making complex ideas feel more human, memorable, and in sync with the brand.

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30+ Years of practice

Experiences that live in the world, not just on a screen.

My background in architecture taught me to use space as a medium, the same way typography or code is a medium. It shapes how people feel, move, and make decisions. Every room I've designed starts with the same question: what should someone understand about this brand that they couldn't understand from a website?

That lens has carried through 30 years of work in healthcare innovation, brand experience, and design strategy at the firms that helped define these disciplines, and at the companies that hired them.

IDEO NBBJ Hornall Anderson Philips Healthcare
01

Philips
Customer-Facing Spaces

Philips Healthcare
2017 — 2026
Role Creative direction · Programming · Stakeholder alignment · Vendor coordination
Scope Global Hub Locations: NA HQ (Cambridge), Netherlands, Bangalore. Customer-facing sites: Washington DC, Rochester MN, Cleveland OH, San Diego CA
Type Branded environments · Innovation labs · Training centers · Customer experience centers
Philips Customer Experience Center

Spatial Design  ·  Environmental Brand

Customer Experience Centers

Across eight years at Philips, I led creative direction and programming strategy for a global portfolio of customer-facing environments designed to do double duty: demonstrate Philips' technology and vision to enterprise healthcare customers, while functioning as working environments for the teams who call them home.

This included the North American headquarters build-out in 2019, a major retrofit of the global Customer Experience Center in the Netherlands, and Innovation Hubs in Bangalore and Cambridge. Each space translated Philips' brand palette and design principles into architecture, using color, materiality, and spatial sequence to carry the story from the lobby through the lab.

Philips Cambridge Innovation Hub
Philips CEC interior
Philips CEC collaboration space

Healthcare Innovation  ·  Spatial Design

Philips at Mayo Clinic
Discovery Square

Discovery Square is a world-class med-tech innovation hub on the Mayo Clinic campus and an important brand touchpoint for Philips. I led the programming and schematic design of the ~5,000 sf space: a first-of-kind venue that needed to function simultaneously as a customer-facing showcase for Philips' healthcare innovation capabilities and a working environment for resident research fellows.

The design reflected a then-recent evolution of the Philips brand palette and introduced flexible spatial configurations that could shift from intimate team workspace to immersive client experience in minutes.

Mayo Clinic Discovery Square
Mayo Discovery Square interior detail
Mayo Discovery Square flexible configuration
02

Airbus
Experience Center

Airbus / Hornall Anderson
Washington, DC  ·  2016
Role Project lead, pitch through delivery · 3D design lead · Experience strategy
Scale 8,000 sf · Washington, DC
Type Flagship brand environment · Custom digital content · Interactive exhibits · Event space
Airbus Customer Experience Center Washington DC

Brand narrative concept

“The sky connects us all.”

If you want to understand Airbus, look up. The dream of flight echoes through human history — Icarus, da Vinci, the Montgolfiers, the Wrights. Today, we fly not merely because we can, but because we must. Our connection to the skies has become essential to how we exist as people: how we connect with the world, with economies and cultures, with those we love. The sky is boundless, and the boundaries to be pushed equally so.

Spatial Design  ·  Environmental Brand  ·  Digital Content

Flagship Destination
for a Brand Entering
a New Market

Visit the Experience Center ↗

Airbus was entering the US market and needed a physical presence that would announce the brand to government, commercial, and industry audiences with the credibility a European aerospace giant demands. The result was an 8,000 sf flagship Customer Experience Center in Washington DC — a showcase-plus-workspace that invites guests into a greater understanding of Airbus Group's role in shaping the future of aerospace.

I led the project from initial pitch through content development and final implementation including spatial concepts, 3D design, prototyping, executive presentations, and on-site delivery. The space combines custom digital content, interactive exhibits, and flexible collaborative event spaces into a single experience that shifts from intimate executive briefing to large-scale industry reception, carrying the Airbus story without ever having to say it out loud.

Airbus CEC interior view
Airbus CEC exhibit detail
Airbus CEC collaboration space
Airbus CEC digital content
Airbus CEC event space
Airbus CEC full space view
03

Golden State Warriors
Sales Experience Center

GSW / Chase Center / Hornall Anderson
San Francisco  ·  2017
Role Project lead, pitch through delivery · Creative strategy · 3D design lead · Digital content oversight
Outcome $1.4B+ raised in private funding · 80%+ of suites sold within 8 weeks of opening
Type Immersive sales environment · Brand activation · Digital content production
Chase Center Golden State Warriors Sales Experience Center exterior

Brand narrative concept

“Greatness in Common.”

Moving a beloved franchise from Oakland to San Francisco meant navigating real tension: die-hard fans, changing neighborhoods, and the weight of a team on the cusp of dynasty. The concept rooted the new arena in the broader Bay Area community: a shared identity built around the idea that greatness isn't owned by a city, it belongs to a region.

Sales Center  ·  Brand Experience  ·  Immersive Environment

A Choreographed Experience
That Raised $1.4 Billion

The NBA's Golden State Warriors were building the first privately funded arena in league history, which meant raising over $1.4 billion through sponsorships and suite and seat sales before a single game was played. The sales center experience was the mechanism: an immersive, choreographed environment designed to make the future arena feel not just real, but inevitable.

I led the creative strategy and design development of the entire experience: space design, original digital content and media production, and the overall brand look and feel. The space moved visitors through a sequence of carefully designed moments, each one building the emotional and commercial case for being part of Chase Center from the beginning. Within eight weeks of opening, over 80% of available suites were sold.

Warriors Sales Center entry sequence
Warriors Sales Center main hall
Warriors Sales Center digital moment

The experience sequence

Warriors Sales Center moment 1
Warriors Sales Center moment 2
Warriors Sales Center moment 3

Click any image to enlarge

Warriors Sales Center suite view
Warriors Sales Center brand detail
Warriors Sales Center full view
04

Nordstrom
Beauty Experience

Nordstrom / Hornall Anderson
2014 — 2015 · National Rollout
Role Project lead, business development · Prototype design lead · Fixture & system development
Scale 8,000 sf prototype lab · 8-store pilot · ~30-location national rollout
Type Retail experience · Service model design · Fixture system · Scalable rollout
Nordstrom Beauty Experience concept rendering

The strategy

“Nordstrom at the Core.”

Nordstrom's beauty department had become an assemblage of vendor brands — indistinguishable from any other department store. But customers trusted Nordstrom's point of view in fashion and shoes. The insight: they'd pay for that same curation and opinion in beauty. The solution was to insert Nordstrom's voice at the physical center of the department — a curated, service-forward experience that replaced the brand cacophony with a clear editorial perspective.

Retail Experience  ·  Service Design  ·  System Design  ·  National Rollout

From Prototype
to 30 Locations

Nordstrom partnered with Hornall Anderson to understand how today's consumer defines an exceptional beauty experience, and then to build it. After an initial research and strategy phase, I led the development of a full-scale 8,000 sf prototype lab, a working simulation of the new department built for testing with staff and customers before a single store was touched.

The prototype did the heavy lifting. It validated the fixture system, the new service model and staffing roles, the digital endcaps and POP displays, and the "Nordstrom at the Core" spatial concept. From that testing, the design was refined, piloted in 8 stores, and ultimately rolled out to approximately 30 locations nationwide.

Nordstrom beauty prototype lab full overview
Nordstrom beauty department space plan
Nordstrom beauty digital fixtures

From foam-core to rollout — the prototype in motion

A time-lapse of the 8,000 sf prototype coming to life — from rough foam-core mockups through fixture installation, staff training, and live customer testing.

Pilot stores & rollout

Nordstrom beauty pilot store
Nordstrom beauty rollout store
Nordstrom beauty service experience
Nordstrom beauty department wide view
Nordstrom beauty concierge service area
05

GE Innovation Center

GE / Hornall Anderson
Calgary, Alberta  ·  2012
Role Design lead, concept through delivery · Digital content strategy · Spatial design
Location Calgary, Alberta — high-rise tower, downtown core
Type Innovation center · Immersive brand environment · Interactive content · Client engagement
GE Innovation Center Calgary interactive table with city view

Innovation Center  ·  Immersive Environment  ·  Digital Content

GE's First Customer
Innovation Center
in North America

GE's first Customer Innovation Center in North America was purpose-built for Calgary — the heart of Canada's energy industry — at a moment when GE wanted to deepen its relationship with the oil and gas sector. The brief was ambitious: a space where enterprise customers could experience GE's full breadth of innovation across energy, healthcare, transportation, and infrastructure, and understand why GE wasn't just a vendor but a partner in the challenges that matter.

The design organized the experience into three distinct zones: an immersive entry sequence with an overscaled slatted GE logo and large-format custom video content; a curved innovation gallery featuring an interactive timeline of GE's 130-year legacy, a 30-foot curved video wall with custom ecosystem stories, and the Edison quote corridor; and a suite of flexible working and collaboration spaces — from intimate client lounge to boardroom — finished with a quiet library and respite area.

GE Innovation Center entry hall with slatted GE logo
GE Innovation Center immersive theater
GE Innovation Center Edison quote corridor
GE Innovation Center digital screen and Edison quote
GE Innovation Center client lounge
06

Exploring What’s Next

AI Tools & Methods
2024 — 2025

On working with AI

Like everyone in this field, I’m figuring out what these tools make possible — and where they fall short.

The work below isn’t polished portfolio. It’s active experimentation: spatial design proposals visualized with AI rendering tools, architectural concept exploration in Midjourney, and AI-assisted storytelling for a conference presentation on design leadership. Some of it worked well. Some didn’t. All of it was useful to understand.

The question driving all of it: not what can AI do, but what can I do with it that I couldn’t do before?

Ukraine MRI Training Center
Rendair.ai  /  AI Rendering Exploration
Ukraine MRI Training Center
Comparing AI rendering vs. traditional 3D workflow — SketchUp + Enscape vs. Rendair.ai
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Rendair.ai  /  AI Rendering Exploration

Ukraine MRI Training Center

One of my last projects at Philips: developing proposals to restore healthcare infrastructure in Ukraine included a concept for pre-fabricated Imaging Diagnostic Centers built in a new factory in Ukraine (not shown) as well as a MRI Training Center to address radiology-tech staff shortages and support an EU-funded 25-MRI delivery proposal.

I modeled the facility in SketchUp and used it to compare AI-assisted rendering against my existing Enscape pipeline. Rendair.ai and Nano Banana take a 3D model as input and generate photorealistic renders, including people and environmental context.

ToolsSketchUp · Enscape · Rendair.ai · Nano Banana
ResultMixed — promising speed and entourage generation; some rendering artifacts

Facility overview — isometric view

Ukraine MRI Training Center isometric

CAD model → AI render

Training Center Entry — SketchUp

MRI entry CAD

Training Center Entry — Rendair.ai

MRI entry AI render

MRI Control Room — SketchUp

MRI control CAD

MRI Control Room — Rendair.ai

MRI control AI render

Project overview board — design iterations and AI rendering tests

MRI overview board
Midjourney sketch explorations
Midjourney  /  Concept Visualization
Architectural Style & Clinical Space Exploration
Weekend workshop — architectural sketch styles and MRI suite visualization
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Midjourney  /  Concept Visualization

Architectural Style & Clinical Space Exploration

In fall 2025 I enrolled in a weekend workshop on Midjourney for architectural visualization and brought two team members along so we could understand together how AI might change spatial design practice.

We explored architectural sketch styles via text prompt and tested Midjourney's sophistication for clinical environments like MRI suites. Honest conclusion: interesting for style exploration and early concepting, limited without model training on Philips design language, which wasn't sanctioned by IT at the time.

More valuable as a team learning exercise than a production tool. Understanding the landscape so I could advise my team and leadership accurately was the real deliverable.

ToolsMidjourney (text-to-image, style exploration)
ContextWeekend workshop, team learning exercise — Fall 2025

Architectural sketch style exploration via text prompt

Midjourney architectural sketch styles

MRI suite — text-to-image

Midjourney MRI suite

MRI — prompt iterations

Midjourney iterations

Healthcare — isometric diagram

Midjourney isometric
Runway AI avatars
Runway Gen-2  /  AI Video & Storytelling
Building Design Capabilities into Sales Organizations
dmi: Design Leadership Conference — Runway avatars + Canva AI deck
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Runway Gen-2  /  AI Video & Canva  /  Storytelling

“Building Design Capabilities into Sales Organizations”

When my team moved from Philips’ global Innovation & Design function into the North American Enterprise Sales org, I agreed to give a talk at the Design Management Institute conference on what happens when you move designers into a sales organization.

To protect the privacy of the colleagues I’d interviewed, I built ten animated character avatars in Runway Gen-2 — short vignette videos representing key themes, structured as a Top 10 countdown. The entire deck was built in Canva using AI layout and design tools.

The talk went well enough to be invited back to a larger DMI conference five months later. The more interesting result: an AI-native workflow that let a solo designer turn qualitative interview data into a polished conference presentation in a compressed timeline.

ToolsRunway Gen-2 · Canva AI
Venuedmi: Design Leadership Conference — May & September 2025

The cast — 10 AI character avatars

Runway AI character avatars

Slide in use — character video in Canva deck

DMI presentation slide

Runway asset library — character iterations

Runway character library

The work
behind
the work.

Mark Buchalter

I have midwest roots. Grew up in Michigan, studied architecture as an undergrad. After a stint in practice I wanted to make things with my hands and moved to upstate New York, studied furniture design, and worked as a furniture maker. That's where I met my wife.

Graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art followed, an MFA in 3D Design, and then two years designing science museum exhibits before joining IDEO, where I stayed for eleven years. I built the Chicago studio's environments practice from nothing, expanded into healthcare innovation, and ran workshops with groups from twenty to two hundred and fifty.

NBBJ brought eighteen months embedded in a research project for the VA Replacement Medical Center in New Orleans, resulting in a published guide on veteran-centered design. Then Hornall Anderson in Seattle, where I led the experience design studio bringing physical and digital brand experiences to life for the NBA, Airbus, Nordstrom, Alaska Airlines, and GE. Then Philips Healthcare in Cambridge, where I led a strategic design consulting team that contributed to $1.1 billion in enterprise sales and earned international design awards.

The thread through all of it: space is a medium. It shapes how people feel, move, and make decisions. A room is never just a room. It's a message about what this organization believes and who it's for.