NBBJ

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In recent years the design of hospitals that emulate hotels has generated a warming trend in this often forbiddingly cold, institutional building type.

With more than $33 billion in its asset trust endowment, the Gates Foundation is the wealthiest charitable entity in the world. But it wanted to send the right message with the architecture of its new home: bold but not arrogant, global but also a good neighbor.

The design of the E.W. and Mary Firstenburg Tower supports Southwest Washington Medical Center’s 150-year-old mission of service to its patients, their families, the facility’s staff, and the surrounding community.

The completion of Banner Gateway Medical Center last September provided the growing community of Gilbert, Arizona, with what the NBBJ design team calls the “next-generation hospital.”

When officials at Banner Health asked designers from NBBJ’s Seattle office to create their new, 452,238-square-foot hospital in west Phoenix, they said they wanted the place to be “warm.”

As it is in the civilian world, health care in the military is a growing enterprise that requires facility expansion to keep pace with demand.