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By Nancy B. Solomon, AIA

Even more promising is the soon-to-be released Green Guidelines for Healthcare Construction (GGHC). Developed by a committee under the auspices of the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE), an affiliate of American Hospital Association, these guidelines address sustainable criteria specific to health care. Gail Vittori, codirector of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, in Austin, Texas, chaired the group of sustainable and health-care experts from around the country. The organization of the Green Guidelines follows very closely that of LEED for New Construction: It is divided into similar environmental categories, each of which has a few prerequisites plus a variety of strategies for credit.

 

Veterans Skilled Nursing Facility, Retsil, Washington NBBJ designed ceilings that are 12 feet 4 inches tall to provide ample room for an interior convective current to develop (diagram, above): Hot air rises, is cooled by the precast-concrete planks, and then drops back down. The high ceilings also allow for 8-foot-high, double-hung windows along one wall of each bedroom. Low-emissivity coated glass and installed interior roller shades reduce solar heat gain. Different types of exterior shading devices address particular solar conditions at various facade orientations. Images: Courtesy NBBJ

But it is at the level of the strategies themselves that one begins to appreciate the differences. Some of the GGHC (www.gghc.org) categories include additional prerequisites. For example, “mercury elimination” is required in the “Materials & Resources” category and “asbestos removal or encapsulation” is necessary in “Environmental Quality,” reflecting the fact that existing medical facilities have potentially harmful materials that need to be either removed or contained.