BrittanyNew York, NY —
“Good design heals.” For multidisciplinary designer and architect Yiwei Gao, this isn’t a metaphor — it’s a guiding principle that has shaped her career across architecture, AI-powered health tech, and behavioral care systems. From envisioning high-altitude haze-scraping towers in polluted Beijing to leading the UX behind crisis-resilient mental health platforms in the U.S., Gao’s work is united by a single purpose: enhancing the human condition through thoughtful, systemic design.
Currently a Senior Product Designer at Headway, Gao plays a pivotal role in reshaping how Americans access mental health care. At the same time, her AI-integrated fitness tool Hercs recently won the prestigious 2025 Red Dot Design Award, adding global recognition to a portfolio already rich in public impact. But Gao’s design philosophy took root much earlier — in the realm of speculative architecture, where she asked not only what cities should look like, but what they should do for us.
From Skyscrapers to Systems: A Legacy of Human-Centered Innovation
Gao’s architectural journey began with a bold vision — literally reaching into the clouds. Her entry for the eVolo 2013 Skyscraper Competition, The Beijing Haze-Scraper, imagined a network of slender towers that scraped particulate matter from urban skies while producing clean fog to restore atmospheric moisture. Published in the official eVolo 2013 annual, the proposal was both ecological and infrastructural — a direct response to worsening public health conditions in cities overwhelmed by smog and toxic air.
“Even as an architect, I wasn’t designing monuments. I was designing for survival,” Gao explains. “It was about restoring the right to breathe — about dignity and access at a planetary scale.”
That same ethos now drives her work in the digital health landscape, where she designs tools that tackle psychological and systemic burdens at scale.
Designing Access When It Matters Most
In moments of systemic disruption, design can serve as a stabilizing force. Gao’s work centers on creating resilient, human-centered systems that ensure continuity of care—even during national-scale healthcare crises. Whether responding to infrastructure breakdowns or improving day-to-day access, she focuses on removing friction and uncertainty from the patient experience.
Her efforts span a range of foundational design challenges: making behavioral health services more accessible, simplifying enrollment pathways for underserved populations, and reimagining the provider journey to expand care networks efficiently. Across each initiative is a common thread: clarity, empathy, and scalability.
“Design is infrastructure,” Gao reflects. “It’s the invisible layer that determines whether care is blocked — or flows effortlessly.”
This perspective underscores her belief that design isn’t just about screens or interfaces. It’s about shaping systems that deliver dignity, access, and reliability — especially for those who’ve historically been left behind.
Award-Winning Tech: Hercs and Human Resilience
Beyond Headway, Gao recently designed Hercs, a smart strength-training tool that uses motion sensors and AI to guide users safely through exercises, detect fatigue, and prevent injury. Its sleek, sensor-integrated product design and intelligent coaching engine earned it the 2025 Red Dot Design Award in Health Tech — one of the most competitive global design honors (Red Dot Project Link).
Though the application differs, the principle remains the same: designing for better living.
“Whether you’re lifting weights or seeking therapy,” Gao says, “you’re trying to feel whole. And my job is to design the scaffolding for that wholeness.”
The Future of Care Is Interdisciplinary
Gao’s background — part architect, part UX strategist, part public health advocate — positions her at the forefront of a new kind of design thinking: one that isn’t tied to any medium, but to human well-being as the core metric.
Her philosophy, rooted in both the speculative skyscrapers of her early career and the systems platforms of today, challenges the notion that design is just “interface.” Instead, she calls for a design practice that is:
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Interdisciplinary: marrying form, function, and psychology
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Infrastructural: tackling upstream barriers and not just UI layers
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Inclusive: focused on the underserved, the invisible, the at-risk
In her words:
“The spaces we build — physical or digital — are moral spaces. They determine who gets to access care, who feels safe, and who is left out. Design is how we make that visible — and how we change it.”
