Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Designed by CO Architects in collaboration with DFDG Architecture and Floor Associates, Arizona State University (ASU) Health Futures Center, is a multidisciplinary home for medical technology innovation, research, education, and conferencing on a newly developed site for the university’s burgeoning biotech presence adjacent to the Mayo Clinic Phoenix.
With spaces for research, meetings, conferences, and instruction, the building covers 145,200 square feet in a landscape of creosote, and Palo Verde trees.
The project has recently been awarded a 2023 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The Health Futures Center (HFC) marks the beginning of a new chapter in the 20-year partnership between Arizona State University and Mayo Clinic.
Located on 24 acres of previously undeveloped land, the HFC is the flagship facility for ASU’s new campus adjacent to the Mayo Clinic Phoenix.
The HFC expands the university’s impact as a research-focused institution in transdisciplinary medical technology acceleration and innovation, entrepreneurship, and education.
Its iconic design represents ASU’s mission to improve patient care, transform medical education and support innovative research discoveries.
From the start of the project, the design team fostered an inclusive programming process with stakeholders from multiple ASU colleges, departments, and groups, as well as partners from the Mayo Clinic.
This early engagement fostered consensus for subsequent design evolutions and enabled an ethos that the HFC would be collaboratively authored by its stakeholders, not simply inherited from the design team.
The belief is that intense stakeholder engagement fosters a mindset in all occupants who, during their time and tenure in the HFC, will serve as caretakers and contributors to the facility and its mission.
Designed to encourage collaboration and the exchange of ideas, the HFC enables a broad range of strategic ventures that will foster better health outcomes and advance health science education.
Its program is a unique blend of wet and dry research laboratories, medical simulation, a MedTech accelerator, workspace and meeting spaces, and a conference center.
Divided into two wings, the public-facing north wing of the building houses the conference center.
The space includes meeting rooms, two learning studios, and a double-height, 300-seat circular auditorium.
The south wing is an integrated mix of wet and dry laboratories, workspaces, and a simulation center housed on the third floor.
It also houses the flagship Mayo Clinic and ASU MedTech Accelerator on the second floor which features modular laboratories and workspaces designed to help medical startups better navigate challenges and discover life-changing health innovations.
The HFC’s architectural expression draws directly from its desert context and its role as the inaugural campus building.
Conceptually, the project stitches together a diverse, hybrid program and user population by creating a range of collaborative and individual moments along circulation paths.
The design uses analogies to the integrated functions of the body-building components and functions are referenced as skin, appendages, circulatory systems, spine, heart, and mind.
The HFC marks the beginning of an impactful new campus where future development will transform the area into a biotech corridor.
Home to the strategic partnership of ASU and the Mayo Clinic, it is projected to add 1,000 jobs to the Phoenix area in the next 10 years, leading to better health solutions, clinical expansion, and the development of innovative approaches to medicine and healthcare.
Project: Arizona State University (ASU) Health Futures Center
Architects: CO Architects
Lead Architect: Jonathan Kanda
Design Team: Jenna Knudsen, Paul Zajfen, Tanner Clapham, Jennifer Swedell, Phillip White, Crystal Martinez, Chi Zhang, Esther Chao, Sona Aroush, and Edgar Beltran
Associate Architects: DFDG Architecture
Landscape Architects: Floor Associates Inc.
General Contractor: DPR Construction Inc.
Client: Arizona State University
Photographers: Bill Timmerman Inc.
