Howard County General HospitalSchematic Design Proposal

Casey Schardt

Project Information

Location: Columbia, Maryland Size: 81,000 square foot addition , and 44,000

square foot renovation to an existing 230,000 square foot facility

Cost: $20 Million Construction Cost Constructed between September 2000 and July

2003. New Emergency Dept., Birthing Dept., Neonatal

ICU, Pediatric Nursing Unit, and expanded Imaging Dept.

Redesigned Spaces Lobby/Reception Area: Includes

reception desk, waiting room, vending area, and connecting corridors

Nurse Station: Features 2 desk areas open to the surrounding corridor, and an enclosed charting area

Conference Room: To be designed to accommodate meetings, audiovisual presentations, and video conferencing

General Considerations• Cost/Efficiency

– It is important to minimize costs while maintaining quality of all systems.

– This includes initial costs, maintenance costs, and operational costs (power consumption)

• Age of Occupants– Increased light levels to accommodate the elderly.– Increased uniformity (older eyes are more sensitive to glare

sources.

• Atmosphere– It is important to keep the hospital as uplifting as possible, to

ease the feelings of anxiety and depression that the patients may be experiencing.

– An appearance of cleanliness should be conveyed.

Lobby/Reception Area

Waiting Area

Reception Vending

Vestibule

Children’s Area

Bulkhead over desk

Lobby/Reception AreaVisual Tasks

• Reception Desk– Reading, Paper tasks– Interaction with patients– VDT use

• Waiting Area and Vending Area– Light Reading– Relaxing

• Corridor– Orientation

Lobby/Reception AreaDesign Criteria

• Reception Desk– Ambient Illuminance: 30 fc– Illuminance on Desk: 50 fc– Low uniformity (4:1) on surfaces to minimize

veiling reflections both in paper tasks and VDTs– Minimal direct glare– Good color and modeling of faces

Lobby/Reception AreaDesign Criteria

• Waiting/Vending Areas– Local level of 30 fc available for reading– Minimal glare to reduce veiling reflections in

reading material, such as the glossy pages of magazines

• Corridor– At least 5 fc for orientation

Reception Area

Semi-Indirect Pendant

Fluorescent Louvered Slots

(in bulkhead)

Reception Area

• The semi-indirect pendant is to provide the receptionists with an ambient light level, while minimizing veiling reflections in their VDTs

• The fluorescent slots are to provide the necessary additional light on the desk surface, while minimizing glare and veiling reflections from the horizontal surface.

Reception Area

Veiling Reflections are harmlessly bounced upward

Uniform background minimizes veiling reflections in VDT screens

Waiting Area

Indirect Pendants

TV

TV

Table Lamps

Paintings with spotlights

Waiting Area• The semi-indirect pendants are to provide

ambient light levels in the waiting area. They also provide a bright ceiling to convey a brighter appearance to the room.

• Table Lamps are provided to allow the user to increase the light level for reading. They also convey a more comfortable residential mood.

• Paintings with spot lights are added to contribute some visual interest to the space for patients to take their mind off waiting.

Lobby/Reception Area

• Corridor and Vending Area– These spaces will also have the same pendants

to match the waiting area and reception desk.

• Color– The standard CCT for the hospital is 4100 K,

however this area is to have a lower CCT of 3500 to give the space a less intimidating, more residential atmosphere.

Nurse Station

Nurse Station

Nurse Station

Charting

Corridor

Staff Corridor

Nurse StationSection

Nurse StationVisual Tasks

• Nurse’s Desk– Reading, Paper tasks– Interaction with patients– VDT use

• Charting– Heavy VDT use– Also reading (paper tasks)

• Corridor– Orientation

Nurse StationDesign Criteria

• Nurse’s Desks– Ambient Illuminance: 30 fc– Illuminance on Desk: 50 fc– Low uniformity (4:1) on surfaces to minimize

veiling reflections both in paper tasks and VDTs– Minimal direct glare– Good color and modeling of faces

Nurse StationDesign Criteria

• Charting– Ambient Illuminance: 30 fc– Low uniformity (4:1) on surfaces to minimize

veiling reflections both in paper tasks and VDTs– Minimal direct glare

• Corridor– At least 5 fc for orientation

Nurse Station

Linear Semi-Indirect Pendants

Fluorescent Louvered Slots

(in bulkhead)

Nurse Station

• The linear semi-indirect pendants are to provide the nurses with an ambient light level, while minimizing veiling reflections in their VDTs

• The fluorescent slots are to provide the necessary additional light on the desk surface, while minimizing glare and veiling reflections from the horizontal surface.

Nurse Station

• Corridor– 2x4 lensed troffers will be used in the

surrounding corridor spaces.

• Color– The hospital’s standard CCT of 4100 K will be

used for the nurse station and surrounding corridors.

Conference Room

Projection Screen

Marker Board

TVPC

Monitor

Conference RoomVisual Tasks

• Meeting– Reading, Paper tasks– Personal Interaction

• Presentations– Projection Screen– Marker Board– Television and PC Monitors

• Videoconferencing– Viewing Monitor– Camera Considerations

Conference RoomDesign Criteria

• Horizontal Illuminance of 50 fc on table• Vertical Illuminance of 30 fc on faces• Vertical Illuminance of 30 fc on white board• Good uniformity on faces for

videoconferencing• Minimal veiling reflections on VDTs and

paper tasks• Good color and modeling of faces

Conference Room

Semi-Indirect PendantsWall

Slot

Wallwash Downlights

Conference Room

• The linear semi-indirect pendants are to provide light to the table and give the ceiling a high uniform illuminance

• The wallwash downlights, along with the pendants provide indirect light delivering light to the background, and contributing to a high uniform vertical illuminance.

• The wall slot is simply to provide light to the white board when necessary

Conference Room• The table surface is to have a high

reflectance which will help to reflect some light to the underside of people’s faces, increasing uniformity

• The wallwash downlights and the direct light from the pendants deliver a direct component for better facial modeling.

• Dimming controls will be provided to achieve various scenes for each of the different uses of the space

Overall Lighting Design• There are many ways that the efficiency of

the lighting system can be improved.• For example, downlights with 2 horizontal

compact fluorescent lamps are used extensively throughout the building. These fixtures have an efficiency of 39%.

• 1x4 linear fluorescent fixtures, which are much less efficient than 2x4 fixtures are also used in many locations

• The benefits of using more efficient fixtures will be examined.

Overall Lighting Design• T-5 lamps can be used in many types of

fixtures also to increase their performance.• More dimming controls will be added in

many spaces to allow the users to reduce the amount of light they use, if desired, especially in those spaces with available daylight.

• Automatic shutoff devices, such as occupancy sensors will be added in spaces where energy can be saved when no one is in the room.

Electrical Design

• The emergency power loads will be calculated.

• A new emergency generator will be sized for the addition (the facility’s existing generator was accurate, but I’ll design one assuming it wasn’t).

Electrical Design

• An uninterruptible power source will be designed to serve the radiology equipment (currently when the generator starts up, the small power fluctuation affects this sensitive equipment.)

• Panels located in the interstitial spaces will be eliminated and served from panels in other locations.

Electrical Design

• New load calculations will be done to account for reduced lighting loads due to installing more efficient systems.