Healthcare construction has slowed a bit in the last few years, but it remains a critically important sector for many AEC firms. While healthcare clients are demanding sustainable design and construction as a matter of course, green building is no longer limited strictly to hospital projects.
In Seattle, Swedish Cancer Institute has installed a factory-fabricated radiotherapy treatment “vault” to house its TomoTherapy treatment system. RAD Technology Medical Systems manufactured steel modules for the vault at its production facility, along with prefab wood modules for the patient exam and office portion of the nearly 4,000-sf facility. It is believed to be the first radiation center to earn LEED Silver certification.
Another first—at least for a privately owned facility—goes to San Francisco Surgical Arts’ LEED-CI Platinum (v.2009) oral and maxillofacial surgery office. Environmental Building Strategies led the Building Team—medical designer Kohan Inc. and contractor All Phase Builders—in reducing lighting power 37% and water usage 40% over conventional facilities. Solar-powered keyboards and Energy Star-qualified LED monitors and appliances were also used.
For the $538 million expansion of Phoenix Children’s Hospital (designed by HKS to Green Guide for Health Care standards), Kitchell Contractors built a central energy plant for the 34-acre campus that employs a high-efficiency, 800-ton water-to-water heat pump chiller, a technology widely used in the Middle East.
The central plant will save 5.6 million gallons of water per year, reduce natural gas consumption by 70%, and trim energy and operating costs $11 million over 15 years. The project also received a $464,000 cash award from APS Solutions for Business, the local electrical utility’s energy-conservation program for commercial customers.
In Richmond, Va., Moseley Architects worked with design partners KEI Architects,
Dennis Kowal Architects, and John Dickinson & Partners and GC Kenbridge Construction on the renovation of the Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired Administration and Activities Building. The center provides training for blind, vision-impaired, and deaf-blind Virginians to adapt to living with partial or no sight.
Commonwealth guidelines called for the $4,272,600 project to bring the facility, which was built in 1970, up to LEED Silver standards. The team went well beyond that. A central skylit atrium brought light and warmth into the facility. Variable-speed HVAC systems and energy-recovery technology were installed. Single-pane windows were replaced with low-e, double-pane units. Existing halide site lights were upgraded to LED fixtures. Energy use was trimmed 15%, water consumption by 30%, saving 34,000 gallons a year.
As a result of these measures, the project earned LEED Gold certification.
The team also embraced “sustainability” in a larger context in making the center compliant with ADA Accessibility Guidelines. By not focusing exclusively on what could be seen, the team created a design that considered such factors as echoes, smells, and proportions to arrive at what they called a “building for sighted people.”
Another project seeking to break new ground in sustainability is the Palliative Care Campus, a 120-unit Enhanced Assisted Living Residence for persons with serious progressive illnesses. It is said to be the world’s first spirit-centered, enhanced assisted-living community residence. The client, the HealthCare Chaplaincy, is a national leader in research, education, and multi-faith patient-centered care. FXFOWLE Architects is the AOR and designer, in collaboration with MHG Architects and Clodagh Design.
The 16-story, 180,000-sf project, to be built in Lower Manhattan along the East River, will also house a geriatric and palliative care outpatient medical practice, plus research, educational, clinical practice, and administrative spaces. The facility will address not only patients’ physical ills, but also their psychological and spiritual well-being. The HealthCare Chaplaincy hopes the new campus will serve as a national demonstration project for the healthcare industry. +
Related Stories
| Apr 14, 2011
How AEC Professionals Choose Windows and Doors
Window and door systems need to perform. Respondents to our annual window and door survey overwhelmingly reported that performance, weather resistance, durability, and quality were key reasons a particular window or door was specified.
| Apr 14, 2011
USGBC debuts LEED for Healthcare
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) introduces its latest green building rating system, LEED for Healthcare. The rating system guides the design and construction of both new buildings and major renovations of existing buildings, and can be applied to inpatient, outpatient and licensed long-term care facilities, medical offices, assisted living facilities and medical education and research centers.
| Apr 13, 2011
National Roofing Contractors Association revises R-value of polyisocyanurate (ISO) insulation
NRCA has updated their R-value recommendation for polyisocyanurate roof insulation with the publication of the 2011 The NRCA Roofing Manual: Membrane Roof Systems.
| Apr 13, 2011
Professor Edward Glaeser, PhD, on how cities are mankind’s greatest invention
Edward Glaeser, PhD, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University and director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, as well as the author of Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Healthier, and Happier, on how cities are mankind’s greatest invention.
| Apr 13, 2011
Southern Illinois park pavilion earns LEED Platinum
Erin’s Pavilion, a welcome and visitors center at the 80-acre Edwin Watts Southwind Park in Springfield, Ill., earned LEED Platinum. The new 16,000-sf facility, a joint project between local firm Walton and Associates Architects and the sustainability consulting firm Vertegy, based in St. Louis, serves as a community center and special needs education center, and is named for Erin Elzea, who struggled with disabilities during her life.
| Apr 13, 2011
Virginia hospital’s prescription for green construction: LEED Gold
Rockingham Memorial Hospital in Harrisonburg, Va., is the commonwealth’s first inpatient healthcare facility to earn LEED Gold. The 630,000-sf facility was designed by Earl Swensson Associates, with commissioning consultant SSRCx, both of Nashville.
| Apr 13, 2011
Office interaction was the critical element to Boston buildout
Margulies Perruzzi Architects, Boston, designed the new 11,460-sf offices for consultant Interaction Associates and its nonprofit sister organization, The Interaction Institute for Social Change, inside an old warehouse near Boston’s Seaport Center.
| Apr 13, 2011
Expanded Museum of the Moving Image provides a treat for the eyes
The expansion and renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., involved a complete redesign of its first floor and the construction of a three-story 47,000-sf addition.
| Apr 13, 2011
Duke University parking garage driven to LEED certification
People parking their cars inside the new Research Drive garage at Duke University are making history—they’re utilizing the country’s first freestanding LEED-certified parking structure.
| Apr 13, 2011
Red Bull Canada HQ a mix of fluid spaces and high-energy design
The Toronto architecture firm Johnson Chou likes to put a twist on its pared-down interiors, and its work on the headquarters for Red Bull Canada is no exception. The energy drink maker occupies 12,300 sf on the top two floors of a three-story industrial building in Toronto, and the design strategy for its space called for leaving the base building virtually untouched while attention was turned to the interior architecture.
