Abstract
Nowadays, the discussions about sustainable design are of top priority, and along with the global environmental crisis, they influence hospital design. Sustainable design seeks to reduce the negative impacts on the environment and improve health and comfort for the building occupants by improving the building’s performance. In this context, the future viability of hospital as a building type is being re-evaluated. According to the WHO, the ideal quest at present is the creation of the “zero waste hospital”. A tendency towards basic, archetypical design rules in modern healthcare buildings that focus on the building’s relationship to the natural environment; these design attempts have also great advantages to the healing environment of the hospital. In this paper, design parameters, issues and elements that can contribute to the sustainability of modern hospitals are highlighted and presented through some hospital examples and studies of the late 1960s until present.
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Notes
- 1.
The sick building syndrome (SBS) describes the condition that occurs when a number of a building’s occupants have a constellation of nonspecific symptoms without a specific identifiable cause including nausea, headaches, dizziness, skin irritation, etc. These symptoms should be temporally related to being in the building, resolve when the person is not in the building and be found in a number of individuals within the building. Although it is not exactly clear what causes the SBS, it is probably due to a combination of factors including poor ventilation (e.g. poorly maintained air conditioning system), indoor air quality and lighting quality. The SBS is common in open plan-type buildings (e.g. offices), but one can get it in any other building type.
- 2.
Energy consumption is responsible for the CO2 emissions to the atmosphere that contributes to the “greenhouse effect”.
- 3.
Based on the energy consumption of the building (e.g. shell, heating, lighting, etc.) and on the investment that is required for their implementation.
- 4.
Sustainable Development Unit was established in 2008. The Unit is jointly funded by, and accountable to, NHS England and Public Health England to ensure that the health and care system fulfils its potential as a leading sustainable and low carbon service.
- 5.
WHO. Climate change and health: resolution of the 61st World Health, Assembly. Geneva: WHO, 2008, pp. 27, www.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/A61/A61_R19-en.pdf
- 6.
WHO (2013). Healthy Hospitals – Healthy Planet – Healthy People, Addressing climate change in health care settings. A discussion draft paper published by the World Health Organization and Health Care without Harm, pp. 5.
- 7.
Even the sub-theme for UIA (International Union of architects) 2014 Durban congress was resilience which was explored through several focus areas. Resilience is defined as developed life strategies by communities, critical interventions that contribute to poverty alleviation and the important role of government and its investment towards the reconfiguring of the spatial economy to the benefit of all globally in order to find voice and solutions to problems within all forms of architecture and development practices. Some main focus areas were “ecology” time, evolution, systems, processes and environment, which are intrinsically linked to the concept of time in terms of diachrony, timelessness, preservation, energy control and climate change, as it considers processes of architectural production that acknowledges people and place and an understanding of cities as ecosystems and “values”, with focus areas οn architectural practice and education, in order to re-assess professional values, to interrogate the ethics associated to architectural and design practice and to establish a sense of respect through diversity and humility.
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Vavili, F., Kyrkou, A. (2020). Sustainability and Energy Efficiency Design in Hospital Buildings. In: Dabija, AM. (eds) Energy Efficient Building Design. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40671-4_10
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