Healthcare

Balance

For healthcare facades, promotion of healing & well-being through sunlight, daylight, views & connection to the outdoors has to be balanced with energy efficiency, programming demands & operational requirements.

We help architects achieve this balance by:

Advising on perimeter shading to enable energy efficient perimeter zones that offer natural daylight and connection to the outdoors,

Providing analysis & visualization to select between cheaper small windows and the psychological & healing benefits of expansive glazing alternatives.

System interfaces

Hospitals are programmatically varied, e.g., lobbies, waiting rooms, staff areas, labs, patient rooms, offices, imaging spaces, loading docks. This usually means lots of facade system interfaces. We take care to make sure these critical interfaces are air & watertight.

Design life

Hospitals also often have unusually long design lives & are energy intensive. This means that the annual operational cost impacts of design decisions are multiplied by many years. We provide advice on:

Material & system selections for long term aesthetic & performance,

Details robust enough for the long design life,

Energy efficient & low maintenance shading solutions.

Contamination management

Contamination management is also a key consideration of healthcare projects. Strategies such as high air-change rates, strict pressurization control & careful intake / exhaust separation all impact enclosure design. Our deep experience allows us to guide the team through the issues involved.

Ground level up view of the facade of the Stanford Outpatient Center in Redwood City, showing the slatted metal horizontal external sun shading system. Horizontal shading devices, Stanford Outpatient Center, Redwood City CA