PARAMETRIC STUDY OF THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL AND MEDICAL CENTER ADDITION IN OMAHA, NEBRASKA
Open Access
- Author:
- Taylor, Mary Isabella
- Area of Honors:
- Architectural Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Architectural Engineering
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Moses Df Ling, Thesis Supervisor
Richard George Mistrick, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Parametric Study
Architectural Engineering
Mechanical Option - Abstract:
- The Children’s Hospital and Medical Center located in Omaha, Nebraska recently added a four-story podium, six-story tower, and roof helipad. This addition consists of 390,000 square foot of space added to the current facility. The hospital is located in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, along US Route 6 and serves as one of the top children’s hospitals in the country. The recent addition to the facility serves to expand the hospital by adding intensive care patient rooms, additional surgical and exam rooms, office space, and other necessary support spaces. Included among the challenges of the addition to the hospital was to create a high performance enclosure that supported the wellness of the patients. This meant that the design needed to balance an environment that considered both the energy used by the building as well as the patient’s needs. In order to create a building that was centered on patient experience, architectural changes were considered for the building from the Given Design. This included ideas such as expanding the size of the windows to allow for more daylighting and creating a double skin façade that could be utilized for maintenance purposes. In addition to architectural changes, the envelope was optimized in terms of the assemblies specified for the building. Final optimizations for the building also included an upgrade to the lighting system and an analysis of the operation of the mechanical system. All of these changes to the building were done by conducting parametric studies on how the changes effected the patient experience, energy use, and the heating/cooling loads for the building. By using the applicable design codes and ASHRAE standards, several iterations and studies were completed to create an optimized building that is both energy efficient and provides for an improved patient experience.