BANNER ESTRELLA

MEDICAL CENTER

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

DESIGNING FOR

CHANGING CARE

To support the healthcare needs of Phoenix’s booming

population, NBBJ helped Banner Health design a new

hospital that would double as a testing ground for rolling

future campuses, expand over time and flex with changes

in the industry, come online in record time and adapt to the

specific needs of a local community.

design

BREAKTHROUGH

NBBJ created a modular design of temporary zones organized

around a permanent infrastructure/circulation spine. The

building was planned backwards, starting with the final

planned expansion — to decide exactly how everything would

plug in and interact — then backtracked to the first phase of

prototype concept was then used for its sister hospital, Banner

Gateway, bringing that community hospital online in 28 months.

“We were really excited about installing our new care processes from top

immediate healthcare needs of its constituents while looking

ahead to what the future of care might bring. At the same

time, Banner was undertaking a major transformation in the

way care is delivered across all of their facilities, streamlining

their operations and standardizing their support systems,

including everything from IT to architecture.

The 450,000-square-foot Banner Estrella was conceived as

the “Hospital for the Future” — the model upon which all

future Banner hospitals would be built. To ensure clarity of

vision from initial concept, Banner identified six key factors

Banner Estrella was designed and built in 36 months—8 months

faster than the typical schedule for a similar facility.

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healthcare industry, and yet healthcare facilities have typically

been optimized for first use, rather than future use. Many

healthcare campuses are a series of building additions, each

built for a specific use, unable to adapt to future challenges

in flow and efficiency. Banner Estrella is designed to adapt to

unknown futures, such as the inevitable shifts in patient care,

business plan and emerging technologies.

The design team’s challenge was to move beyond traditional

“first use” master planning principles, which are typically

50+ years—economic lives. By planning for the future without

building all the infrastructure now, the design team was

able to synchronize the functional and economic life of the

hospital at a minimal cost.

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When fully built out, the 50-acre Banner Estrella campus will

be able to support a 1.2 million square foot hospital with

foot, single tower hospital (1, above). This strategy ensured

that everything was in place and poised for growth when

needed, without interrupting current operations.

NBBJ’s modular concept developed a practical and

achievable approach based on a simple set of principles:

the needs that are constantly changing require short-

term, flexible planning responses and are accommodated

within “program containers” since they are temporal and

essentially “plug and play.” The needs that change very little

over time require a long-term, systematic response and are

wayfinding on the site, requiring new entries and lobbies, or compromising established user circulation concepts. Exterior

wall panels can be removed and reused on the new face during construction. Similarly, the design of the spine’s plug-and-

play circulation and M/E/P and IT infrastructure eliminates disruption of learned and critical user flows and minimizes service

interruptions during construction.

Phase One includes the initial program components required for economic viability. Level One includes the birthing

center and emergency services bundled within two containers, inpatient care and D&T. On this level, the spine acts

as a de facto public gallery, integrating main lobbies and entries with public circulation to services. On Level Two, the

spine serves as staff and IP circulation between clinical and inpatient care units. On the lower level, it houses material

circulation and building systems distribution between the loading dock/central utility plant and all hospital services.

The design of horizontal and vertical circulation separates certain flows—inpatient and outpatient, patients and materials,

Considered a “paper-light” facility, nearly all documents

at Banner Estrella are electronic, eliminating the need for

storing patients’ charts at centralized nurses’ stations. This

led to a 96% reduction in document storage costs and a

40% reduction in forms costs. Ease of sharing records and

Centralized nurses’ stations were replaced with clinical

integration suites made up of computing stations and small

conference rooms for greater clinical collaboration.

The circulation corridor’s water feature and garden separate the patient tower

and treatment areas, forming a canyon-like oasis between the two structures.