For over 30 years, our Healthcare team has partnered with providers, designers, planners, and builders to create environments that support both clinical excellence and human-centered care. Across that time, three defining projects in particular highlight how priorities—and solutions—have evolved. Together, these transformations reflect our ongoing commitment to delivering spaces that truly serve the patients, families, and care teams who rely on them.

2000s: Integrated, Resilient Care Campuses – Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara

As the 2000s redefined what a hospital could be, Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara introduced a new model of integrated, flexible, and earthquake-ready care campuses designed to evolve with clinical practice and elevate the experience of patients and staff alike.

• Shift from stand-alone hospitals to integrated care hubs combining inpatient, outpatient, ED, pediatrics, cancer, and cardiovascular services in one 52-acre, 1.2M SF campus.​
• Functional Unit Module planning created flexible clinical units that can adapt to changing practices over time.​
• Design prioritized patient and staff experience: intuitive wayfinding, natural light, outdoor spaces, amenities, and meditation rooms.​
• Post-Northridge quake seismic strategy and unbonded brace frame structure enabled continued operations after future earthquakes, supported by early adoption of BIM to coordinate complex MEP systems.​

Project Team:
Architect: Anshen+Allen
Contractor: Rudolph and Sletten
Furniture: One Workplace

2010s: Fast, Flexible Infrastructure – Sutter Health Van Ness MOB

By the late 2010s, a new challenge emerged: how to transform active healthcare facilities without disrupting the vital work happening inside. Sutter Health’s Van Ness Medical Office Building became a landmark response to this moment, demonstrating how prefabrication and modularity could redefine what healthcare environments are capable of—both today and for decades to come.

• Responded to a central challenge: how to expand and reconfigure in an active ambulatory building without disrupting care.​
• Used the country’s largest healthcare installation of DIRTT prefabricated walls to prefabricate rooms and corridors with integrated technology off-site, then assemble on-site in weeks instead of months.​
• Delivered quieter, cleaner projects with minimal downtime and created a truly modular interior that can be reconfigured as care models and technology change.​

Project Team
Architect: HGA
Contractor: Rudolph and Sletten, Vantis Construction
Furniture: One Workplace

Kaiser Santa Clara Exam Room

Kaiser Santa Clara Exterior Bridge

Kaiser Santa Clara Lobby

Sutter Van Ness Lobby

Sutter Van Ness Exam Rooms

Sutter Van Ness Waiting Lounge

Sutte Van Ness Offices

Montage Health Ohana Center Lobby

Montage Health Ohana Center Lounge

Montage Health Ohana Center Staff Balcony

Montage Health Ohana Center Lounge Space

2020s: Behavioral Health at the Center – Montage Health Ohana Center

A cultural shift in the 2020s placed behavioral health at the center of care, and the Montage Health Ohana Center for Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health stands as a powerful example of how design can destigmatize, heal, and support families through an integrated, nature-forward approach.

• Reflects the cultural shift that brings child and adolescent behavioral health from the margins into mainstream, visible, system-level care.​
• Nature-forward design with cross-laminated timber, abundant daylight, and non-institutional furnishings creates a welcoming setting for whole-family behavioral health services.​
• Behavioral health expert Dr. Justin Mohatt emphasizes that mental health cannot be separated from physical health—they’re intertwined aspects of whole-person, whole family wellness that determine long-term outcomes.

• Ohana embodies whole-person, whole-family wellness by aligning environment, care model, and destigmatizing design cues in a single, integrated campus asset.​

Project Team
Architect: NBBJ
Contractor: South Bay Construction
Furniture: One Workplace

What This Means for Your Next Project

• Design for integration: Align campus, building, and interior planning with evolving care models, not just today’s departments.
• Design for adaptability: Use modular and prefabricated strategies where appropriate to reduce disruption and future-proof your assets.
• Design for whole-person care: Make behavioral health, family support, and staff wellbeing visible priorities in the built environment.

As the next decade brings more integrated behavioral health and tech-enabled care, the core lesson holds: every design decision either supports or hinders healing and operations. The most successful projects are alweays those that anticipate change and keep the needs of patients, families, and care teams at the center from day one.​

Ready to rethink your next healthcare project? Contact our Healthcare design, furniture, and construction experts to workshop ideas, review your current space, or co-create a future-ready care environment.