Firm name: Heapy Engineering
Project building name and location: Mercy Health Partners Hospital Mechanical-Electrical System Design, Cincinnati, Ohio
Type of building and type of project: Hospital, New Construction
Project completion date and project duration: 2013 (estimated)
Engineering challenges and solutions:
Heapy Engineering is designing the Mechanical-Electrical systems for Mercy Health Partners new West Side hospital. The facility will occupy 550,000 SF and have 250 beds. Services will include heart care, including open heart surgery; a cancer center; an orthopedics center; a women’s health center; neurology services and obstetrics/maternity care. The $200 million hospital is scheduled to open in 2013.
The Hospital wanted the flexibility to expand vertically and did not want to take up valuable floor space on the patient floors for mechanical equipment. To accommodate this flexibility, it was decided to locate all of the AHU’s for the entire building in a central location in the basement. Getting fresh air into the units and allowing relief air out was difficult because of the below grade location. Having this intake protected from possible tampering and away from fumes such as car or generator exhaust added another level of complexity.
As brainstorming for a solution occurred, it was noted that the architect wanted to bring in natural light to the first floor through skylights. Instead of just skylights, two light wells that went from the 1st floor roof to the basement were created. This allowed protected fresh air for the entire facility to be brought in, and provided natural lighting to the first floor.