Channeling his experience with a father admitted multiple times for delusional paranoia and dementia, Stephen strives to advocate, educate and elevate mental health through design. He prototyped a new storage solution – the Clark Compartment, named after his father – for mental health inpatient environments after seeing that patients don’t feel like they belong in a space if their belongings don’t has a place.
As mental health planner at Stantec, Stephen has presented at over 20 events in 2025, collaborated on 16 articles, papers or interviews across multiple platforms. His development of the Stantec ZenDen design has melded education and mental health typologies with sensory-enabled architecture as a mobile exhibit and research platform.
As a Principal Investigator exploring Adolescent Crisis Environments, Stephen collaborated on the planning, funding & execution of a semester long studio at Texas A&M University through a Stantec Innovation Grant. As a Centre for Conscious Design Fellow, Stephen has advocated for sensory-enabled architecture and neurodiverse design considerations, publishing his work on the Stantec ZenDen with over 1000 service users, students and patients reached across 6 installations.
In the past year, he has designed or masterplanned nearly 1000 more inpatient mental health beds, developed four master plans, helped open seven separate facilities as medical planner and subject matter expert. He submitted 5 separate projects across diverse typologies in the US and Canada, winning several national and international design awards along the way.
In 2025, Stephen expanded the DrawnOut! Mental Health Sketch Workshop series, an interactive sketching workshop intended to defy stigma by design. A collaboration with a friend with lived experience, the workshop pairs empathy exercises with evidence-based design best practices. This has been implemented from Honolulu to Washington, DC to Manchester, England and beyond. An exhibit of the sketches are to be unveiled at Arch Exchange East later this year. As an Associate to the DiHMN Board, Parker has strived to co-found the new North American chapter, recruiting members, raising funds and leading the reach of the Network across the world.
