With speed to market a primary focus, the integrated team worked together to utilize multi-trade prefabrication and a unique parallel document delivery system (PDDS) to ensure that design and construction was completed efficiently and effectively within an 18-month window. By using PDDS to issue design documents, the six work packages served as a continual method of accountability for completing design documents and construction milestones on time.
Prefabricated building components—such as patient room bathrooms and headwalls; MEP corridor racks; vertical mechanical duct mains; and operating room ceilings—were constructed in an off-site, temperature-controlled warehouse while the bed tower was under construction. This reduced the amount of noise, dust and vibration at the hospital, as well as eliminated a significant amount of construction traffic. The entire prefabrication process—along with PDDS—resulted in an estimated seven-month savings on the overall project schedule when compared to conventional construction.
To remain faithful to the hospital’s original design, we blended the addition with the existing structure by using the same brick and precast concrete. Along with 48 private rooms situated on the building’s top two floors, the new tower features decentralized work spaces adjacent to patient rooms, which enable better care, more efficient communication and improved patient safety. At the end of each corridor on the patient floors, a large curtain wall of glass floods the space with natural light.
Subtle details throughout the inpatient tower seek to neutralize the stress that hospitals often evoke. These details include graphics of nature; frosted glass that masks work areas; and artistic glass used to represent flowing water. In order to unite the new building with the hospital and seamlessly combine the wayfinding systems, an existing landscaped area was modified to become a courtyard.