Brown Sardina collaborated with the project team to create an Integrated Healthcare Community master plan which emphasized walkability, recreation and natural landscape within an urban condition. Consisting of three phases, the completed community includes a teaching hospital, academic facilities, retail and recreational amenities, and student and faculty housing.
Three alternatives were developed to test specific project program and to explore different design parti’s, ‘Spine’, ‘Park’, and ‘Concentric’. While each alternative displayed a unique set of program elements, a pattern of three principles were formed throughout the process. Large open spaces are encouraged to create an interconnected network of public areas, but privacy and secluded spaces were invaluable. Water is sacred in a desert environment and creates habitable and refreshing spaces. Dense programmed or dispersed native landscapes are necessary for successful urban communities.