Architecture and Design

Architecture and Design

Design for High Performance Healthcare Facilities.

The health care industry is a fast growing sector and has an opportunity to become a leader in sustainable design. The industry’s growing recognition raises concern for health care architecture to be "greened" for the benefit of patients, staff, visitors, and the environment in totality.

“Hospitals- the healthiest building of the community -should be pioneer in Green Buildings and hence promote a healthy community.”

Green architecture has come of age in the recent times. With growing concerns towards the environmental issues, many industries have taken the lead to construct Eco friendly buildings. The Healthcare industry is also making small inroads in Green Building Architecture.

There are no guidelines for green buildings in India as such but certain efforts are being made by LEED India to have a comprehensive guide for buildings build in India. TERI GRIHA has also prepared certain guidelines for specifically Indian buildings. As such there have been no efforts in the health care sector. However internationally there are institutes that are taking some efforts for the development of a comprehensive toolkit just for Healthcare,

In U.S. Green Guide for Health Care provides the healthcare sector with a toolkit that helps designers to design and assess their own buildings. These guidelines highlight best practices that the designers can use as guidelines and certify their project and achieve high performance Building.

Advantage green architecture

 

1. Green architecture promotes good environment and health.

2. They aid in early recovery and shorter hospital stays, resulting in higher influx of patients, thus increasing profits.

3. Monitory gains for reducing carbon footprint.

4. An initial investment of 2% in green building design, on an average, results in life cycle savings of 20% of the construction costs — more than ten times the initial investment.

5. Operational Savings: Green buildings consume at least 40-50 % less energy and 20-30 % less water as compared to a conventional building. Although this increases the cost by about 5-8 %. The incremental cost gets paid back in 4-5 years time.

6. Other benefits include:

· Energy savings

· Water and waste management

· Lower consumption of resources.

Checklist for green health care design

1. Site design

2. Water conservation

3. Energy conservation

4. Indoor environmental quality

5. Climatic Design Considerations

6. Materials and products

7. Construction practices

8. Operation and maintenance

9. Other innovations

Some Green initiatives for Healthcare

Waste to renewable energy- using all the bio medical waste to produce energy since it cannot be burned as the gases omitted during burning are harmful in nature. It allows production of electricity as well as useful steam with clean emissions.

Water conservation – Using high performance fixtures and equipments. Optimizing the use of water in cooling towers, by switching to recycled water. This may be collected from the site itself rather than using potable water. Plantations that are native to the place and can resist natural weather conditions should

Quality – Minimizing use of material that attracts pollutants like carpets. Adequate delighting has to be achieved within the building be planted. Using treated runoff water for non potable water requirements of the site.

Energy savings- optimizing the natural orientation of the buildup. Design the buildings for appropriate delighting factors. Providing efficient lighting systems, HVAC fixtures. Using building materials that are environment friendly and are respond adequately in the climatic conditions of the area.

Materials to be used - Using non ozone depleting substances. Using recycled and eco-friendly materials.