Designing With AI: Lessons From Dr. Azra Bihorac
Beyond the Operating Room: What Medicine Can Teach Designers About AI, Ethics, and Human Wellbeing
Imagine a hospital room that senses a patient’s subtle signs of distress before a human doctor even notices. An intelligent system quietly sifts through hundreds of data points — heart rate, lab results, surgical notes — to alert clinicians to a brewing infection or a hidden risk. Not in theory, but in real time. This is not science fiction — it’s happening now, thanks to the work of Dr. Azra Bihorac.
Dr. Bihorac, a critical care physician, researcher, and Director of the Intelligent Critical Care Centre (IC3) at the University of Florida, is building AI tools that don’t replace doctors but enhance their ability to see patterns and make decisions earlier. Her approach is human-led, ethics-focused, and quietly radical — and it offers powerful insight for industries well beyond medicine.
At K5 Furniture, we recently had the pleasure of emersing ourselves in the world of Dr. Bihorac as a continuation of our Melbourne Design Week panel, “Designing the Future in an AI World.” While our expertise lies in design for space, form, and wellbeing, her work invites us to ask: how might AI serve our creative professions in similar ways, as silent co-pilots to help us create environments that heal, hold, and adapt?
Dr. Bihorac’s journey began in Sarajevo as a young doctor during wartime. After earning her MD, she moved to the U.S. and trained in internal medicine, nephrology, and critical care. But it wasn’t until a master’s in clinical science in 2011 that she began exploring AI, not as a buzzword, but as a real-world tool to transform patient care.
“Over the years, my path has evolved from traditional clinical practice into the world of AI and data science — a transformation made possible by collaboration and the urgent need to improve care.”
At the University of Florida, she helped create MySurgeryRisk — one of the first AI-powered cloud platforms to predict surgical complications in real time. It has outperformed doctors in identifying risks like blood clots and sepsis, not to override clinical judgment, but to spark more informed conversations between patients and caregivers.
AI as Assistant, Not Oracle
There’s a poetic clarity in how Dr. Bihorac frames AI’s role in medicine — not as an all-knowing oracle, but as a tireless assistant.
“I see it as a collaboration between an Archivist and a Healer: AI as the unerring assistant, clinicians as the mediator. It’s a two-way street”, Exclaims Dr. Bihorac. This idea echoes what many designers are beginning to explore: using AI not to automate creativity, but to support intuition with data. Could AI identify patterns of stress in public space usage? Could it model airflow and light in real-time to enhance circadian health? Could it help us design furniture that anticipates emotional states or physical strain? The potential lies not in replacing human design, but in augmenting it — responsibly.
Of course, AI is not neutral. “Bias and lack of diversity are major concerns in AI. In medicine, we’ve learned that systems trained on biased data will inevitably reinforce inequities.” One of Dr. Bihorac’s most urgent concerns is bias — not just in algorithms, but in the data itself.
To address this, her team launched initiatives like the Bias-athon, where clinicians learn to spot and counteract bias in clinical datasets. In her AI Passport program, doctors are taught micro skills in ethical AI, lessons that could easily be adapted for architecture, interiors, or product design.
Reflecting on key skills Dr. Bihorac emphasises that “Ethical design starts with inclusivity and intentionality” Whether in healthcare or spatial design, you have to involve diverse voices from the start. Designers, much like doctors, make decisions that affect lives. If AI enters our creative workflows — as a tool to predict usage, analyse sensory input, or enhance user comfort — we must take equal care in how it’s trained and whom it’s built for.
Simultaneously, when asked whether AI can make objective decisions, Dr. Bihorac cautions against that illusion. Without human oversight, AI risks missing emotional nuance or hallucinating responses entirely. “AI lacks emotion. That’s why humans must supply both the empathy and the oversight. It’s a partnership, not a handover.”
This resonates with current conversations around designing for wellbeing: AI may help us gather more data on stress, attention, or emotional response, but it cannot intuit the quiet poetry of light, texture, or a place that feels safe. That still belongs to the human.
“Ultimately, AI should enhance clinical — or creative—decision making. Never replace it.”
What Design Can Learn From the ICU?
Dr. Bihorac sees an incredible opportunity for AI to support wellbeing beyond the hospital walls. “We could use AI to design adaptive environments that respond to behaviour, that shift based on physical and emotional needs. Homes, schools, workplaces — they all stand to benefit.”
The challenge? Doing it ethically. Doing it with diverse input. Doing it transparently.
In healthcare, Dr. Bihorac learned AI is only as good as the intent behind it. The same applies to design. If we treat design like medicine — a practice of care — then perhaps we too can use AI to not just optimise space but make it more human. But this will require new frameworks, new collaborators, and a shared sense of responsibility.
At K5, we believe furniture, like architecture holds more than just people. It holds emotion, memory, and mood. As we explore how AI might play a role in our industry, Dr. Bihorac’s work reminds us that intelligent tools are powerful, but they must be human-centred. Their strength lies not in independence, but in integration — with ethics, with equity, and with empathy.
Designers may not work in operating rooms, but the responsibility is similar: to understand the systems we build, to question their impacts, and to design for life.