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Singapore Medical Campus Pushes Boundaries of Sustainable Healthcare Design

Healthcare Design magazine cover story touts HOK’s ambitious sustainable design for the Ng Teng Fong General and Jurong Community Hospitals.

Excerpted from Healthcare Design:

The opening of Singapore’s Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH) and Jurong Community Hospital (JCH) two years ago was already an impressive feat. With a combined 1,100 rooms, the $461 million pair of hospitals, which are managed by JurongHealth, are the country’s first to fulfill the Singapore Ministry of Health’s new mandate—a part of its aggressive Healthcare 2020 master plan—to provide better patient-centered services in an integrated manner by pairing acute care and outpatient specialty services with a general community hospital.

But what’s garnered international attention and acclaim in recent months is the campus’ impressive environmental story. Delivering an energy use intensity (EUI) of 72 kBtu per square foot per year, the super energy-efficient design utilizes 38 percent less energy than a typical Singaporean hospital and 69 percent less than the average U.S. hospital “It challenges the traditional model of a hospital, both from American and Singaporean perspectives,” says Bill Roger, regional director of Healthcare at HOK (San Francisco), which was the design consultant on the project.

One of the most noteworthy design feats of the buildings was delivering not only views, but operable windows and naturally ventilated spaces to most patients. Other sustainable design highlights include 90 kW photovoltaic arrays on both buildings, designed specifically to offset the site’s lighting. Heat recovery, heat pumps, and heat exchangers with runaround coils to maintain required temperatures in the operating rooms.

After two years of operation, the wards’ ventilation performance is getting high marks from users. Based on patient and staff surveys, which were conducted in March 2016 after nine months in use, the average indoor temperature of 84.5 degrees Fahrenheit was accepted by 93 percent of surveyed users and the average relative humidity of 63.7 percent was considered comfortable by 90 percent. In addition, 80 percent reported that the lighting levels are “just right” with a good amount of natural daylight, 90 percent of the patients interviewed agree that the ward design has helped them recover, and 90 percent of the staff state that the ward design has helped them become more productive in their work.

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